


Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by coolbreeze1



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbreeze1/pseuds/coolbreeze1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A visit to a beautiful planet has disastrous consequences for John Sheppard. The team races to find out what's wrong with him, but the answers they seek may be buried deeper than they imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoilers for Common Ground. Also, this is another old story and only the third one I'd ever written.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

“These are some lovely ruins you’ve got here, Rodney,” John Sheppard said, staring around at the mass of stones strewn in the grassy meadow. He kicked one of the stones with the toe of his boot.

“This is absolutely bizarre,” Rodney McKay said to no one in particular. He stared intently at the device in his hand and spun slowly in circles.“Rocks are like that,” Sheppard griped. He was rewarded by a snort of laughter from Ronon. The Satedan looked equally as bored as he felt.

“Would you tone the sarcasm down just a little? It’s interfering with my energy readings.”Sheppard rolled his eyes in response. He watched McKay squat down next to a large, unnaturally square rock and study the readings on his handheld device as he hovered over it.

“McKay, are you done with your rocks yet?” Sheppard asked after a few minutes, losing his patience.

“No, I’m not done yet. We just got here. These rocks were obviously hand-carved, probably part of a small structure right around here,” McKay explained, waving his arm in the general area the team was standing in. “Obviously, this was a very, very long time ago, which makes these energy readings I’m picking up extremely odd.”

“What energy readings?” Teyla asked.

“From this big rock right here,” Rodney answered, kicking the square rock in front of him. “The scanner shows that it’s solid all the way through, which means the readings could be from some natural element in the rock or...now that doesn’t make sense…the other rocks don’t seem to be…”

Sheppard watched Rodney walk around the ruins, his voice trailing off into incoherent mumblings as he focused back on his scanner. The scientist retraced his steps back to the square rock and began digging into the dirt around the base.

“Teyla, stay here with Rodney and watch his back. Ronon and I are going to take a look around.”

Teyla nodded, looking a little chagrined at being left with McKay. Sheppard and Ronon immediately headed toward a small grove of trees about 100 yards away. They walked along in silence, and Sheppard noticed Ronon looking into the trees on the right. The terrain seemed to get more rugged in that direction, the canopy of trees casting a shadow over the whole area.

“Why don’t you check that area out?” He said, nodding his head in that direction. “I think I see some water up ahead. I want to take a look.”

Ronon didn’t answer, just grunted and dove into the undergrowth without a second glance. Sheppard shook his head at the man’s enthusiasm and continued forward on the semi-trail they’d been following. A couple of minutes later, the trees thinned out and a small beach appeared at the edge of a huge lake.

Sheppard took a deep breath, almost gasping at the sight in front of him. The lake was incredible. It was deep blue, like pictures of mountain lakes in the Alps orAlaska that he’d never actually had a chance to visit but had always wanted to. The sandy beach was maybe 30 feet wide before the thick growth of trees popped up again. The blue lake lapped almost silently against the sandy shore, and fond memories of summer vacations spent waterskiing flooded John’s mind as he gazed out across the glassy surface of the water. The sand tapered off behind him, leaving a small patch of grass before disappearing into the thick forest.

 _Like a little hidden beach._ A cool breeze blew across the surface of the lake and John breathed in deeply. This planet suddenly seemed a lot more appealing. He would definitely have to recommend coming back here. It might even make a good Alpha site.

A passing cloud had covered up the sun, but the sun reappeared, making the blue color of the lake even bluer. He stepped closer until the water lapped gently against the edges of his boots. He peered into the water at his feet, noticing that it was foggy and not clear like he’d expected. He could barely see the sandy bottom only a few feet ahead of him.

He was about to turn away and head back to the others when something in the water caught his attention. He leaned forward, trying to get a closer look. It looked like something metal was floating under the water, reflecting the sunlight overhead. It bobbed a few times, but never actually surfaced, then sank back into the foggy blue water. He looked for it for a few more seconds and was ready to give up when he caught sight of it again much farther away. He got a better look at it this time. It was perfectly round; too round to be natural. It was shiny, too, and caught the sunlight each time it bobbed.

Not bobbed. Moved. John had been in and around water enough to know that whatever the object was, it wasn’t moving with the currents. It seemed to be moving under its own power, but what that power was, John couldn’t say. There were a few large boulders on the beach jutting out a few feet into the water, and the metal ball seemed to be moving haphazardly in the direction of the furthest rock, so John climbed out onto the boulders to get a closer look. He squatted down on the rock and leaned forward, bringing his face close to the water. The metal ball had disappeared, but he knew it was close and he waited for it to resurface.

* * *

Ronon walked out of the deep undergrowth and saw McKay still kneeling over the ruins, completely oblivious to the world around him. Teyla stood nearby, looking bored but continuously scanning the area. She smiled as she saw Ronon approach and the Satedan gave her a small wave. He heard a small, distant splash and turned toward the direction he had last seen Sheppard. Teyla had also heard the splash and she looked intently for the source of the sound.

“Where is Colonel Sheppard?” She asked.

“He was checking something out. He said he thought he saw some water.”

Ronon and Teyla stared at the trees for a moment, waiting for Sheppard to appear. McKay glanced up, and Ronon wondered if he’d noticed the sudden apprehension of his teammates.

“Colonel Sheppard, it is Teyla. Please respond.”

All three of them waited for his response, expecting the immediate sound of his voice, cheerful but slightly bored. Rodney stood up, staring toward the trees with his teammates when Sheppard did not respond.

“Sheppard?” Ronon asked, keying his mike. He began walking more quickly toward the path in the trees where he had last seen Sheppard. Teyla and Rodney followed close behind. Teyla continued to call for him on the radio as they walked through the woods, but John’s continued silence ratcheted up the tension. They picked up their pace as they reached the little beach. Teyla and Rodney scanned the trees on the opposite side of the beach, but Ronon stepped up to the edge of the water.

The view was startling. Ronon wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen water so blue. A light breeze fluttered across the water, breaking the smooth surface into tiny ripples. As the wind died down, he noticed the water continued to ripple. His heart stuttered in his chest.

* * *

Teyla jumped at Ronon’s startled cry. She spun around as the Satedan crashed into the lake. She stepped up to the edge to see what had caused such a dramatic reaction in her teammate and gasped in shock.

“John!” She cried out. She could hear Rodney panicking besides her as Ronon swam out into the lake. John’s limp body was floating face down in the water about 30 feet out. Ronon reached him in less than a minute, and Teyla watched him grab the colonel and flip him over so that he was face up. John did not react, obviously unconscious. Ronon swam back toward the shore, dragging his friend’s body behind him.

She and Rodney ran out into the water when Ronon was close enough. Teyla grabbed one of John’s arms while Rodney reached for his legs. John was a dead weight, but together, they helped Ronon get John out of the water and onto the beach. John’s arms and legs flopped lifelessly. Teyla immediately dropped to the ground next to John’s head, feeling for a pulse. His face was white and he had a deep, bloody gash in his forehead. Blood was dripping down his face and pooling into is left eye, but it was the slightly bluish tinge around his lips that sent fear lancing through her.

“Is he breathing? Is he dead?” Rodney was on his knees a few feet away in full panic mode. Ronon kneeled next to him and put his hand on Rodney shoulder. He seemed as if he was trying to calm the scientist down, but the fear on his face belied his feelings.

Teyla reached for the pulse point in John’s neck, pushing hard, and almost sobbed with relief at the weak fluttering she felt there. She leaned forward, bending her head close to John’s mouth. Her relief was short-lived. Her hand gripped his sopping wet vest.

“He has a pulse, but it is weak and he is not breathing. Ronon—”

“Going,” Ronon answered before she had a chance to finish. He took off running back toward the stargate.

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

“He has a pulse, but it is weak and he is not breathing. Ronon—”

  
  


“Going,” Ronon answered before she had a chance to finish. He took off running back toward the stargate.

  
  


Teyla didn’t waste any time watching him as he ran for help. She turned back to John, tilting his head back to begin the rescue breathing that Doctor Beckett had taught her. Rodney crawled forward, gripping John’s cold, limp hand in his and watching in muted horror as Teyla forced air into John’s uncooperative lungs.

  
  


Teyla tried not to think about how long it had taken them to find John or how long he had been without oxygen. She knew that the longer he went without air, the more dangerous it became. She breathed again, and again, and again, trying not to think of death and begging John to hold onto life.

  
  


She paused, feeling for John’s pulse again. She looked up at Rodney, feeling her own heart pounding in her chest. She dug her fingers into his neck, and felt tears spill down her face at the faint fluttering of John’s pulse against her fingertips.

  
  


“Teyla?” Rodney voice was strained.

  
  


“His pulse is there, but just barely,” she answered. She leaned forward, tilting John’s head back again. She gave him a breath, waited a second, then gave him another breath. This time, as she pulled back, she both felt and saw John’s chest seize. A split second later, he began to choke on the lake water he had inhaled. Teyla quickly rolled him to his side as he continued to cough and gag up the water. She rubbed his back, whispering encouraging words as he breathed in wet, ragged breaths. Even Rodney stayed close, resting his hand on John’s head.

  
  


After a few minutes, his coughing seemed to settle down. She brushed his wet hair out off his forehead and continued to whisper reassurances. She looked up at Rodney when the scientist placed his hand on John’s shoulder.

  
  


“He’s shaking,” he said.

  
  


“He is very cold.”

  
  


“We should get him out of that wet coat or something.”

  
  


Teyla nodded, and the two of them gently lifted John into a sitting position. His head lolled on his neck, and Teyla supported the back of his head while Rodney unzipped the man’s vest and jacket. They managed to worm John’s limp arms out of his wet jacket, and then set him carefully back on the beach. Teyla leaned forward again to double-check his breathing and was pleased to note that while his face was still deathly pale, his lips were no longer blue. Teyla pulled off her own jacket and covered her shivering friend. Rodney followed suit, and began rubbing John’s arms and chest to warm him up.

  
  


“Maybe we should do something about that blood,” Rodney said without pausing in his attempts to warm John up. Teyla noticed how pale the scientist was, and she remembered his aversion to the sight of blood. Now that John was breathing again, she took a moment to examine the gash on his forehead. She pulled out a clean bandage and began wrapping it around his forehead, careful to lift his head without jarring him too much. There was still a lot of blood around John’s eye and she wondered if he had injured it as well. She grabbed another bandage and gently covered his eye.

  
  


“Do you think he hurt his eye?’

  
  


“I am not sure, Rodney. It would be best to protect it now, though, and let Doctor Beckett care for it back in Atlantis.”

  
  


“Right, good thinking,” he mumbled. He was strangely subdued, which unnerved Teyla more than anything, but she forced herself to focus on John. He was breathing on his own, but each breath seemed to take an agonizing amount of effort for him. His pulse was stronger when she checked again, and she allowed herself to relax a little.

  
  


As she and Rodney continued their ministrations to keep John warm and breathing, she heard the sound of people running through the small grove of trees toward them. She saw John’s eyelid begin to flutter at the same time, so she put her hand to his face, trying to get his attention.

  
  


“John? Can you hear me?”

  
  


John opened his one visible eye, but his gaze was unfocused. His breathing was still ragged and his eye quickly slid shut. Carson Beckett ran up and dropped to the ground next to him. She could see the relief in his face as she explained how they were able to get the colonel breathing again. Teyla slid back to let Beckett and some of his medics move forward and care for the injured man. Rodney slid next to her and Ronon was suddenly standing behind them. Beckett moved John quickly to a stretcher, and within a few minutes, the whole group was rushing back to the stargate and Atlantis.

  
  


* * *

  


Carson Beckett studied the monitors surrounding John Sheppard without really looking at them. It was the third time in less than ten minutes that he had checked on the Colonel and nothing had changed, but he felt compelled to check, just to make sure. He finally pulled up a chair and settled next to his newest patient.

  
  


It was late at night, and Carson rubbed tiredly at his eyes. It had been an extremely long day, starting with Ronon’s frantic call that John Sheppard was hurt and a medical team was needed on the planet. Carson had run to the gate room immediately. He hated going through the stargate normally, but when a medical emergency call came through, he hardly gave thought to his fears. When he and his team emerged on the other side, along with a marine detail, Ronon was already urging them to run. Carson caught up to the runner and tried to glean as much information as he could on what had happened.

  
  


In clipped, straightforward sentences, Ronon explained that he and Sheppard had split up to check out the area, Sheppard had fallen into a lake, the rest of the team had found him face down and unconscious in the water a few minutes later, and Teyla had sent him to the stargate for help when they realized Sheppard wasn’t breathing. Carson had picked up his pace at that point, fueled by fear-induced adrenaline. He had tried to ask Ronon how long Sheppard had been in the water without oxygen, but the warrior had just shrugged.

  
  


They’d arrived at the beach a few minutes later. Carson spared a glance at the deep blue lake, startled by its beauty, then sprinted toward Teyla and Rodney and Colonel Sheppard lying supine between them. He dropped next to Sheppard and breathed a sigh of relief at the man’s ragged but very present breaths. As he began to examine him, Teyla explained how they were able to get John breathing again, the gash on his forehead, and the blood in his eye.

  
  


The rest happened in a blur. Sheppard’s visible eye fluttered a few times as he struggled with consciousness, but he never fully awakened. Beckett quickly had the man on a stretcher and heading back toward Atlantis. He carefully listened to John’s breathing as they ran, and as they left the planet and emerged into the gate room, he noticed that the Colonel was beginning to go into shock.

  
  


A few hours later, Beckett had come out of the infirmary to find John’s team waiting tensely for news. Their relief had been visible when Carson had explained that John was stable and recovering. He’d allowed them a few minutes to see their team leader, understanding their need to see him alive and breathing, then had chased them out and ordered them to get food and rest.

  
  


He had returned to John’s side, checking and rechecking the man’s vitals. He, too, needed to see him alive and breathing, but couldn’t seem to remain convinced that Sheppard really was okay. He studied the monitors, felt for John’s pulse with his own hands, and listened to John’s breathing.

  
  


He sat back in a chair, taking a deep breath. It was late now, and he was tired, but he knew he would sit by his patient’s side a little while longer. He’d been relieved when it was determined that John had not suffered a concussion, but the gash on his forehead was deep and had required stitches. It would be painful for a number of days.

  
  


Carson leaned forward again as John’s one visible eye began to flutter. He stared at the heart monitor, noting its change in rhythm, and stood up to bring himself into John’s sights.

  
  


“John? Can you hear me?” He asked, rubbing John’s shoulder to help the man wake up. He was rewarded by a soft groan.

  
  


“Come on, Colonel. Open your eyes—eye—for me.”

  
  


John moved slightly, groaning again. He managed to open his eye about halfway before closing it again.

  
  


“Colonel, I need you to look at me. Come on, John.”

  
  


At Carson’s persistent prodding, Sheppard finally managed to open his eye and look up at the doctor leaning over him. Carson smiled, squeezing his patient’s shoulder in reassurance.

  
  


“Whaa…What happen’d?” John asked. His voice was hoarse and almost too quiet to hear. Carson reached back for his chair and sat down next to John.

  
  


“You fell into a lake and hit your head, or you hit your head and then fell into the lake. Ronon, Rodney, and Teyla found you face down in the water, not breathing.”

  
  


John moaned, blinking his eye and trying to focus on what Beckett was saying. Carson paused in his explanation, waiting to see if John had a question, but when he didn’t say anything, he continued.

  
  


“You stopped breathing for a number of minutes. Gave everyone quite a scare,” he said, and watched as John shakily reached for the nasal cannula on his face. Carson pulled his hand away after a few seconds. “Leave it be, John. You need that right now. You owe Teyla a very big thank you.”

  
  


John looked up at him, questioning.

  
  


“She started the rescue breathing as soon as Ronon pulled you out of the water. If she hadn’t done that…” Carson shook his, not wanting to think about the possible alternative outcomes of the day’s events.

  
  


“Remember lake…” John mumbled. “Really blue…”

  
  


“Aye, that it was. Quite stunning, actually. It will be a few days before you’ll be returning there, though. You managed to avoid a concussion this time, but you’ve got a nasty cut in your forehead that required stitches. That will be quite unpleasant for the next few days. You also had quite a bit of blood in your left eye.”

  
  


John had seemed groggy and dazed throughout Beckett’s explanation, but at the mention of his eye, he suddenly brought a hand up to the bandages covering his face. His one visible eye was opened wide, and Beckett noticed his heartbeat was picking up.

  
  


“Easy, son. Take it easy,” Carson soothed. “Our preliminary scans didn’t show any permanent damage. I’m guessing you hit it when you fell into the water. It will take a few days for the blood to drain out, but it should heal fine.”

  
  


“My eye?” John asked, panicked, and Carson wondered how much John had actually heard of the explanation that he had just given.

  
  


“Your eye will be fine. Just give it a few days,” he repeated. He kept his hand on John’s shoulder as the man finally seemed to understand what the doctor was saying to him. He watched Sheppard relax and quickly fall back asleep. Carson checked John’s vitals again, studying the monitors for a few more minutes before finally nodding to himself and heading back to his office.

  
  


* * *

  


Bright and early the next morning, as expected, Sheppard’s team showed up at the infirmary and started hankering the nurses to let them in. Beckett heard the commotion from his office. It was mostly Rodney doing the hankering. Ronon stood behind the scientist, daring the nurse to refuse. Teyla looked more polite, but she had the same determined gleam in her eye.

  
  


“Quiet down, you lot,” Beckett admonished, stepping forward. The nurse shot her boss a grateful look and disappeared into the infirmary as Carson took over handling the three well-wishers.

  
  


“We want to see Sheppard,” Ronon growled.

  
  


“Obviously. Everyone in the whole infirmary knows that.”

  
  


“We are sorry, Doctor Beckett. We did not mean to be so loud.” Teyla apologized to Carson, but she shot a disapproving look at her two teammates.

  
  


“I know you’re just worried about Colonel Sheppard, but I can’t let you see him just yet.” He held up his hands to ward off the protests he could see on the faces of the people in front of him. “First of all, the Colonel is still asleep, and he really needs his rest. Second of all, I have a few more tests I need to run this morning.”

  
  


The three looked forlornly toward the back of the infirmary where Sheppard lay sleeping behind one of the privacy curtains.

  
  


“I thought you ran your tests already. I thought you said he was okay,” Rodney said, managing to lower his voice slightly.

  
  


“He is okay, Rodney. I just want to make sure. He went through quite the ordeal yesterday.”

  
  


“Didn’t we all,” Rodney muttered.

  
  


“May we come see him later then, after you have run your tests?” Teyla asked.

Beckett sighed, knowing Sheppard's team wound't give up easily. "Aye, that'd be fine. You can come see him this afternoon after lunch."

* * *

John had woken up a few times throughout the morning as nurses came and went checking his heart and lungs and temperature, and all the various other things nurses do. At one point, he vaguely remembered Carson talking to him. He felt hands on him and he sometimes felt like he was moving, but he was too groggy to give much thought to what everyone around him was doing.

  
  


The next time he woke up, however, he noticed an immediate difference. His head ached abominably, pulling him further and further away from sleep the more he tried to sink back into the bliss he’d previously been enjoying. He swallowed reflexively, and his headache was joined by a parched and scratchy throat. He shifted in the bed and realized he was laying down. A sound to his left caused him to turn his head, but he hadn’t quite built up the energy to look around. A warm hand rested on his arm, and sleep fled completely as he worked to open his eyes.

  
  


Except that he couldn’t open one of his eyes. His right eye fluttered open, but it took him a moment to focus on his surroundings and see the infirmary take shape around him. He moved his hand toward his face and the left eye that remained stubbornly closed. His limbs felt heavy and lethargic, and John began to panic at his lack of coordination.

  
  


“John, it is alright. You are safe,” Teyla’s calming voice floated over him, somewhere off to his left. He stopped moving his arms immediately and tried to turn his head far enough to see her with his right eye. He felt her hand on his cheek as she guided his head into her sights.

  
  


“Teyla?” He croaked. He watched her face light up with a smile and something else—relief?—and she squeezed his arm in reassurance.

  
  


“Yes, John,” she answered. She reached for a glass of water on the stand next to his bed and brought the straw to his lips. John closed his eyes as the cool water hit his dry throat. When Teyla pulled the glass away way too soon, John tried to open up his eyes to look at her.

  
  


And realized for the second time that something was wrong with his left eye. He brought his hand up again to his face, this time feeling a little more coordinated. He moved his hand up to his eye and felt thick bandages wrapped around his head.

  
  


“What happened?” He whispered.

  
  


“You fell into a lake and hit your head and your eye. Do you not remember this?”

  
  


“…mmm’ rem’mber now. Carson explained.” John relaxed back against the bed and let his hand fall to his side. He started closing his good eye again when he felt Teyla grip his hand. He looked over at her, noticing the haunted look that lingered in her eyes.

  
  


“You okay?” He asked.

  
  


“Yes, I am fine. I was just very worried about you. When Ronon pulled you out of the water, you were not breathing and I thought—” Teyla’s voice caught in her throat, and she glanced away for a moment, unable to continue.

  
  


“Sorry,” John said. Teyla nodded, her face relaxing again into its usual serene expression. “Rodney? Ronon? They okay?” He asked.

  
  


“Yes, they are fine. They were here for a little while, but Rodney was called away to his lab and Ronon…Ronon does not do well with waiting. I believe he went for a run.”

  
  


John smiled at the thought of Ronon getting antsy as he waited in the confines of the infirmary. He could just see the runner fidgeting and moving until he couldn’t stand it any longer. If their positions were reversed, John would probably be doing what Ronon was doing at the moment—running or sparring to work off the extra, anxious energy.

  
  


Carson Beckett suddenly came around the corner, causing John to jump slightly. He turned his head toward the doctor as the Scotsman pulled out his penlight.

  
  


“Colonel, good to see you up. I was just about to come wake you.”

  
  


“Hey, doc,” John rasped. His throat felt tight and dry again. He waited patiently as Carson checked his one visible eye, listened to his heart and lungs, took his temperature, and fiddled with the various monitors John had belatedly realized he was attached to. After a few minutes, the doctor pulled up a nearby stool and sat down on John’s right-hand side.

  
  


“How are you feeling, lad? Are you in any pain?”

  
  


“Head hurts…um…throat and chest are a little sore.”

  
  


Carson nodded his head at John’s responses as if he already knew the answer to his own question. “Do you remember what happened?”

  
  


“Yeah…no…kind of. I remember we were going off-world and I remember a lake. A really, really blue lake. Then I remember talking to you a little before…uh, was it last night?”

  
  


“Aye, it was. We brought you back to Atlantis yesterday afternoon. You woke up briefly last night and we had a quick chat. You’ve been asleep or mostly asleep since then. We ran a few more tests this morning and everything looks good. Besides the cut on your head and the injury to your eye, your chest is a little bruised up, probably from the fall you took. You should make a full recovery, though,” Carson said, smiling.

  
  


“My eye?” John asked, remembering something had happened to his eye but not quite grasping the memory where the details of his eye injury had been explained.

  
  


“You’re eye will be fine. It looks like you knocked it pretty good, and there’s still quite a bit of blood in there, but as far as we can tell, you suffered no permanent damage. You’ll need to take it easy over the next few days, though.”

  
  


“I can do that,” John answered, feeling exhausted again and not believing he’d want to do anything but take it easy for the next month. His head was starting to pound as well.

  
  


“I’m serious, Colonel. Right now, your eye will recover completely, but if you don’t take it easy and let it heal, you could permanently damage your eyesight.”

  
  


“Okay, I get it.”

  
  


“Do you remember falling in the water at all? Did something hit you first, or did you hit your head after you fell?”

  
  


John tried to think back to the planet but the only thing that came to mind was the image of the startling blue lake. Like Alaska, except that it wasn’t cold. He remembered that now. The water was warm. He searched his mind but could come up with nothing. His headache spiked and he fought to hold back a groan. He closed his eye against the throbbing pain.

  
  


“John, is the pain getting worse?” Carson must have noticed the discomfort John was in.

  
  


“Yeah,” he whispered. “In my head, behind my eye.”

  
  


“Alright, I need to check your left eye and change the bandages. Can you stay awake for a few more minutes?”

  
  


John didn’t answer, but he opened his good eye again. Teyla squeezed his arm one last time and promised to come back later with the rest of his team. He smiled in response. In the meantime, Carson removed the bandage on his left eye, urging John to keep his eye closed as he poked and prodded. It only took a few minutes, but by the time Carson was done, John’s eye felt like it was on fire. He hardly noticed Beckett gently re-bandaging it, and looked up at the doctor only at the sudden sensation of cold running up the vein in his arm.

  
  


Carson stood next to him, fiddling with his IV. “I’ve given you something for the pain. Rest now, lad. I’ll check up on you a little later.”

  
  


John didn’t respond. He felt the spike of pain in his head start to ease up and then he drifted off to sleep.

  
  


* * *

  


John woke up suddenly coughing and hacking. His chest felt heavy and his throat was raw. He tried to swallow but the cough that had seized his lungs was unrelenting. He sat up and reached for the ever-present glass next to his bed, his fingers shaking as he fumbled for the water. The glass slipped from his hand as he struggled to draw in a breath between deep, lung rattling coughs, and he vaguely heard the sound of shattering glass as his cup hit the ground. He held a hand to his chest, every breath igniting his lungs on fire.

  
  


“Colonel?” A nurse called. He felt someone next to him, and he grabbed a hold of her hand as the coughs continued to rake through him. The nurse squeezed his hand and began rubbing his back, surreptitiously holding him upright to ease his breathing. Somehow, the nurse produced another glass filled with water. She held it to John’s lips, steadying it as he gulped the water down.

  
  


When he’d gotten enough water and his coughing fit was over, the nurse eased John back. He blinked up at her as she checked his temperature and listened to his heart and lungs. It was dark in the infirmary, and extra quiet, so he figured it was sometime in the middle of the night.

  
  


“How am I doing?” He asked in a whisper, not daring to speak any louder for fear his lungs would revolt and ignite another coughing fit. He was breathing as heavily as he dared, still feeling like he wasn’t pulling in quite enough air. The nurse reassured him that he was doing fine, all things considered, as she turned up the flow of oxygen on his nasal cannula. His breathing became a little easier, and the pressure in his chest eased up. The nurse tucked him back in and told him to call her if he needed anything. John nodded and relaxed into his pillow, feeling wrung out and wanting to do nothing more than sleep.

  
  


But sleep didn’t come. He lay in the dark and stared at the formless shapes around the infirmary. He could hear himself wheezing with every breath, and he silently cursed his own body’s weakness every time he coughed. It had been four days since he’d fallen into the lake. He didn’t remember much of the first day, but by the second day, he’d developed a fever and cough. Despite Carson’s efforts, the cough had worsened, and he was now sporting an infection in his lungs bordering on pneumonia. Carson had explained that it was no doubt from all the water he’d inhaled. He’d even said John was starting to improve, but John felt miserable and worn out.

  
  


Between the coughs that seized his lungs and made breathing difficult to the raging fever that left him either sweating profusely or shaking with chills, he’d begged more than once for someone to just shoot him. He hated being sick more than anything, but on the positive side, his eye was doing better. He still had a constant headache, but the bandages had been removed and his eyesight seemed to be intact.

  
  


He closed his eyes, willing himself to relax, but a small sound had him jerking his head up and peering around the dark room. He lay back down when he realized it had been the night duty nurse walking past. He coughed again, feeling the deep, burning rattle of his lungs. It took a few minutes for the cough to subside and he looked around the infirmary, half expecting the nurse to come back to check on him.

  
  


When no one came, he settled back down and started to close his eyes. Suddenly, he saw a bright flash of light and what looked like a long, gray corridor. The bare walls seemed to slide past him, as if he was walking. He blinked his eyes, intending to look around when the light disappeared. He was sitting up in his bed, unmoving, and blinking into the darkness. He flopped back down on the bed, wondering what he had just seen. Before he could dwell on it any further, he started coughing again. His headache spiked as well, and he felt himself starting to shake against sudden chills. He hardly noticed that the nurse had returned, followed closely by the doctor on duty. They whispered to him comfortingly, but he had no energy to really pay attention to the words. The doctor fiddled with his IV, and before the next coughing fit building in his chest could unleash, he sank into a deep, blessed sleep.

  


* * *

 **Chapter 3**

“Easy, lad. Take it slow,” Beckett soothed, holding onto Sheppard as the sick man struggled not to sway. The almost-pneumonia had finally turned tail and run after a week, but John was weak from the extended illness and lingering fever. He’d been anxious enough about getting him out of bed and rebuilding his strength, but Carson was starting to wonder if it was too soon.

  
  


“…m’ ok’y,” John groaned.

  
  


Carson didn’t say anything. He looked at John’s pale face and mouthed to a nearby nurse to bring a bowl over. John had taken on a slightly greenish tinge, and he’d closed his eyes against the onslaught of dizziness. Carson continued to support the man, feeling the slight tremors in his patient’s body from muscles that hadn’t been used in awhile.

  
  


“John,” Carson began.

  
  


“No, I’m fine,” John said, forcing some determination into his voice. “Let me do this.”

  
  


“How’s the dizziness?”

  
  


John swallowed and slowly opened his eyes. “Better. A little better,” he answered. The nurse had returned with a bowl, but John waved her away in disgust. His body wasn’t quite ready for the sudden motion, though, and his knees began to buckle.

  
  


Carson was ready for this, and he tightened his grip around John’s waist. John had grabbed onto Carson’s shoulder in an attempt to stay upright. The nurse, having set the offending bowl to the side, quickly moved in and grabbed John by the other side. Between the two of them, they kept the sick man upright, but only barely.

  
  


“Let’s get you back into bed,” Carson said.

  
  


“No. Walk. You said walk,” John grumbled. Carson sighed, knowing John was just stubborn enough to stay standing until he collapsed completely. The three of them moved forward slowly, allowing John to find his footing. They managed to shuffle about ten feet before the tremors in John’s muscles became even more pronounced. They turned around at once, and Carson forced John to walk a little faster back toward the bed.

  
  


By the time they reached the bed, John’s legs gave out from under him completely. Carson and the nurse lifted him up into bed and got him settled. Carson noted that John’s face was ashen and a thin film of sweat covered his forehead. The nurse had obviously noticed this as well; she disappeared but returned quickly and set her bowl in John’s lap.

  
  


John finally seemed to admit that nausea had obviously tagged along with its friend dizziness as he gripped the bowl for dear life. Carson left the nurse to care for him when he noticed Elizabeth walk into the infirmary. As he turned away, he heard John begin to retch and saw another nurse run over to help. He turned back around, but the nurses waved him away.

  
  


“What happened? Is he alright?” Elizabeth asked, her face creased in concern as she walked over.

  
  


“Aye, he will be. Let’s chat in my office.”

  
  


The two walked back toward his office, and Carson nodded to himself in relief when he heard John stop throwing up almost as soon as he’d started. He shut his office door as Elizabeth sat in one of the chairs.

  
  


“We decided to get him up and out of bed today. You just heard the aftermath of that,” he said, perching on the edge of his desk.

  
  


“He’s okay, though?”

  
  


“Aye, he is. His lungs are almost clear and he’s hardly coughing anymore. He’s eating more as well. The fever’s hanging on, but it’s low grade now and should clear up soon enough.”

  
  


“Has he remembered how he was injured in the first place?”

  
  


Carson shook his head. “He remembers everything pretty clearly right up until they arrived at the planet, then things get a little shaky. He remembers the lake but not what happened—how he fell in, how he hit his head, or how he got home. The next thing he clearly remembers is waking up in the infirmary. At this point, I believe it’s safe to say he will probably never remember exactly what happened.”

  
  


Elizabeth nodded her head, leaning back into her chair. The doctor took a deep breath when he noticed Elizabeth’s face relax. They’d all been worried enough over the last week, and he didn’t want to ruin the relatively good news concerning John’s illness, but he knew she had to know what was going on.

  
  


“I’m a little concerned, though,” he started and cringed at the sudden tenseness in Elizabeth’s posture. “Besides the fact that this illness hit hard and fast out of nowhere, he’s been plagued with dizziness over the last few days. I’ve run every test I can think of, but they all come back negative. I have no idea what’s causing this. He has a slight inner ear infection now on the same side he hurt his eye, which might explain some of it, but it doesn’t really explain the persistent, severe dizziness he’s suffering from.”

  
  


Elizabeth nodded, glancing down at her hands and taking a deep breath. “Is there anything you can do for him?”

  
  


“We’re treating the earache, so hopefully, when that clears up, the dizziness will ease up. I’ve given him some medication for the nausea as well, which pipes up whenever he’s been moving around too much—as you’ve just heard—but beyond treating the symptoms…” Carson shrugged, feeling the weariness in the muscles in his back and shoulders. “I can’t fix this if I don’t know what I’m dealing with.”

  
  


Elizabeth stood up and placed both hands on Carson’s shoulder. “Hey, you’ll figure this out,” she said. “And, John is strong. He’ll get over this.”

  
  


Carson nodded, wishing he could feel that same sense of confidence in himself that everyone else seemed to. Normally, he did believe he could help any patient. He understood he couldn’t save everyone, but he knew at the very least how to alleviate people’s suffering. In John’s case, though, he was totally baffled. He watched Elizabeth leave his office and head toward John’s bed as he wondered what to do next.

  
  


* * *

  


The dizziness did subside, slowly, but not because of anything Carson did. As Elizabeth had predicted, John seemed to get over it himself. A week later, he was walking slowly down the corridor toward his room with Carson at his side. The doctor reached out and steadied John every time he started to sway, but for the most part, John made it back to his room under his own power.

  
  


It had been two weeks since he’d last seen the inside of his room. He glanced around, almost surprised it didn’t look any different than normal. Carson led him to the bed and helped him lay back, but not before giving him the pills for the almost-gone ear infection. The dizziness really had dissipated over the course of the week, but John hadn’t been moving around that much, and the short stint from the infirmary to his quarters had left him worn out.

  
  


“I want you to take it easy, son. You’ve had a rough couple of weeks,” Carson said as he pulled John’s slippers off and began tucking him into bed. John groaned in response, not real thrilled with the idea that he was being tucked into bed like a five year old, but feeling too crummy to protest.

  
  


“I’ll leave some water on your nightstand, and I’ll have someone come around and check on you in a few hours. Until then, I want you to get some sleep. You’ve just barely gotten over that lung infection and ear infection, and your body needs some time to recover.”

  
  


“Rest. Got it,” Sheppard mumbled. He could hardly keep his eyes open as it was, so he didn’t think following the doctor’s orders was going to be too difficult.

  
  


“Right then,” Carson answered. “ Call if you need anything. I’ve put your radio next to the glass of water.”

  
  


“…uuhh…mmmm…” John mumbled. He felt a slight pressure on his forehead as Carson checked on him one last time, but he was asleep before the doctor could say anything else.

  
  


.

  


.

  


.

  


.

  
  


John came awake abruptly, sitting straight up in his bed. He blinked in the darkness, not sure exactly where he was for a moment. He was breathing hard as he stared into the darkness of his room that was slowly taking shape. He forced himself to relax, and sat motionless on the bed until he felt his heart descend from its manic pace.

  
  


He’d had a nightmare. He was sure of it, but the images were fleeting. Whatever he had dreamed was quickly disappearing from memory. He vaguely recalled a city that was not quite Earthlike. The buildings were all made of brick and looked relatively normal, but there was something about it that was definitely alien.

  
  


John eased back on the bed, rubbing his eyes. The harder he tried to remember the details of the dream, the faster they disappeared. He remembered he’d been standing on some kind of catwalk between two of the buildings, very high up, and overlooking this mysterious city. That was it. After a few minutes, he gave up and made his way to the bathroom.

  
  


It was late, probably the middle of the night. When he came out of the bathroom, John noticed someone had stopped and left some food on the table, probably a few hours earlier. He opened the sandwich packet and nibbled at it, but he wasn’t really hungry and quickly shoved it aside. He’d slept at least a few hours since Carson had released him back to his quarters, and he tried to deny to himself that he was still tired, but he could feel his eyes starting to droop as he sat there.

  
  


He finally admitted defeat and stood up from the table. As he shuffled back to his bed, the room felt like it was suddenly tilting to the side, and John staggered to keep himself upright. He reached forward to steady himself on the end of the bed but in a flash of light, the bed disappeared. He saw the same gray corridor he’d seen in the infirmary. He was walking down the hallway again, even though he was sure he was motionless in his room at the same time. This time, he noticed the corridor seemed to curve slightly, but the walls were bare. There were no doors and a slightly bluish light diffused from somewhere overhead.

  
  


The corridor disappeared as soon as it had appeared, and John found himself on his hands and knees next to his bed. The dizziness was starting to go away, but he felt his stomach churning, and he swallowed against the urge to throw up all over his floor. He tried to sit up so he could lay down on his bed, but the slight upward movement almost lost him the battle against his nausea. He gagged, but kept his mouth shut. His arms were beginning to shake as well, so he eased himself down onto the ground. He thought of the radio on his nightstand and knew he should call someone, but his body shuddered in exhaustion. He would give himself a few minutes to gather his strength first, then he’d call someone.

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

“John? Can you hear me, son?”

  
  


“…huh…?” John groaned. Someone was tapping him on his cheek. “Wha…?”

  
  


“John, wake up.” The voice was persistent. So was the tapping on his cheek. John cracked his eyes open to see Carson leaning on the ground trying to get a look at his face. He realized then that he was lying face down on the floor of his bedroom, less than two feet from his bed. Morning sunlight streamed through the window.

  
  


“I’m up,” he mumbled. He pushed against the ground to sit and felt Carson grip his arms and help him up. He’d only intended to sit up and lean against the side of his bed, but Carson kept lifting and John found himself being eased back into his bed.

  
  


“What happened, lad? You about gave me a heart attack,” Carson asked as he poured a glass of water and held it for John to take a sip.

  
  


“Um…not sure. I had a weird dream and woke up in the middle of the night. I ate some dinner at the table and got tired. I got kind of dizzy, but I don’t really…I guess I fell asleep on the floor?” John explained. He had started rubbing his forehead as he talked, as if that would help bring some of his elusive memories back to the forefront.

  
  


“Did you hit your head at all?” Carson asked peering down at Sheppard in concern.

  
  


“No, don’t think so,” John answered, as Carson ran his hands through John’s hair anyway, searching for bumps or cuts.

  
  


“Do you have a headache or any dizziness?”

  
  


John paused a moment and took stock of himself. “No, I feel okay. Just a little tired.” He lay quietly and let Carson do his thing with the penlight and stethoscope. The image of the great corridor floated back to him. It had happened twice now. There was no doubt now that something strange had happened.

  
  


“Um…Doc?”

  
  


“Hmm?” Carson mumbled as he checked John’s blood pressure.

  
  


“There’s something I should probably tell you,” John started, but then he felt stupid and regretted saying anything at all. Carson froze and looked down at John sharply. Sheppard licked his lips, and Carson waited for him to continue.

  
  


“Last night, when I got dizzy, I saw this flash. Like I was suddenly somewhere else, but I was still here.”

  
  


Carson raised his eyebrows. “Was this before or after you fell?”

  
  


“Uh, before maybe. I saw a flash of light and then this empty corridor.”

  
  


“A corridor? In Atlantis somewhere?”

  
  


John shook his head, grateful Carson hadn’t automatically jumped to the conclusion that he’d lost his mind. “No, I don’t think so. It didn’t look like Atlantis. It didn’t look like anywhere I’ve ever been.”

  
  


Carson sat still for a moment, contemplating what John had told him. He finally looked down at his patient and shook his head. “I have no idea what it could be. A dream, maybe.”

  
  


“This was the second time,” John stated quietly.

  
  


“What? What do you mean the second time?”

  
  


“This is the second time I’ve seen that same corridor. The first time, I was in the infirmary and had just woken up.” He looked up to see Carson’s eyes narrowing and he quickly plowed forward. “I was still really sick and just figured it was a dream or an optical illusion or something, so I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. I kind of forgot about it, actually, but last night…it was the exact same hallway and I know it wasn’t a dream.”

  
  


He waited as Carson watched him. The doctor brought his hands up and rubbed his face, and John noticed he seemed tired all of a sudden.

  
  


“I don’t know what to tell you, Colonel. I’ll need to run some tests, though.”

  


“Yeah, I figured you would.”

  
  


Carson grunted. “Can you make it to the infirmary yourself, or should I call for help?”

  
  


“No, I can make it,” John sighed.

  
  


They made it to the infirmary without incident, and Carson ran every test conceivable but came up with nothing. Sheppard was so exhausted by the time he was finished that he didn’t even try to go back to his room. As soon as Carson said the tests were over, John simply curled up on one of the infirmary beds and fell asleep.

  
  


By the next morning, he was feeling remarkably better and was happy to note that even some of his appetite had returned. Three days after that, John had not seen any more flashes of light or unidentified gray corridors, and Carson finally admitted he wasn’t going to find anything that explained what had happened.

  


* * *

  


“I am pleased to see you are feeling so much better,” Teyla said. She held her sticks lightly in her hands as she faced John. Together, the two of them moved through the stretching routine Teyla had developed when John had begged to be allowed to work out again. Beckett had forbidden any sparring, which John was not happy about, but the stretching routine felt good. He was even starting to get a little tired, though he’d never admit that Carson was right and he hadn’t been ready to spar yet.

  
  


John smiled back. “I’m pleased to be feeling better,” he answered. “Thanks for coming up with this stretching stuff for me.”

  
  


“Of course.”

  
  


John swung his sticks in his hands one at time, loosening the muscles in his arms. He parroted Teyla’s movements as she led him through another series of stretches, steps, and swings. This one was a little more rigorous, leaving John a little breathless but feeling good.

  
  


As he turned and swung one of the sticks, bringing the other one up to block an imaginary downward swing, he gasped and stumbled backward. A Wraith stood right in front of him, it’s face inches from his own. Its white hair looked ragged and wild, and the look in the alien’s eyes was ferocious. John felt as if he was lying down but couldn’t seem to move away from the Wraith. He cried out as the Wraith brought its hand back and slammed it into his chest.

  
  


“John? John, what’s wrong?”

  
  


Sheppard blinked, and suddenly it was Teyla leaning over him. Her dark hair and warm, concerned eyes were a sharp contrast to the steely anger of the Wraith. He looked around and realized he was sprawled on the floor of the gym.

  
  


“I’m okay,” he said. He moved to sit up, and Teyla grabbed his arm to help him.

  
  


“I should call Carson,” she said.

  
  


“No, Teyla, it’s okay. I’m fine.” He was begging, he knew, but he couldn’t face another battery of tests in the infirmary. “I just tripped.”

  
  


Teyla studied him, and John got the feeling she knew he was not quite telling her everything. She didn’t call Carson, though, and for that, John was grateful. As he climbed to his feet, Teyla tightened her grip and led him over to the bench.

  
  


“You are shaking,” she said.

  
  


“I’m just tired. Really, Teyla, I’m okay,” he replied, but he couldn’t quite get the image of the Wraith out of his mind.

  
  


He knew she didn’t believe him, but she dropped it. He let her help him back to his room where he showered then dropped into his bed. He slept most of the afternoon, and by dinner, the nightmarish Wraith slamming its hand into his chest was almost a forgotten memory.

  
  


* * *

  
  


  
John bolted upright in bed. He was covered in sweat and panting so hard the dark room seemed to swirl around him. Images from his nightmare lingered, and even as he sat there, the nightmare seemed to continue. He knew he was awake—he was sure of it—but he felt like he was bouncing between Atlantis and this other world.  


  
  


  
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the image out of his mind. This time it was a small village nestled against the side of a mountain. He was standing in the middle of a field and looking across the small farm to the village surrounded by dense forests. The area to his right had also been cleared for farming, but the place he stood felt like it belonged to him. This was _his_ field, _his_ farm, _his_ village. It was sunny and hot, and John could feel the sweat pouring off his neck and down his back. A small child ran toward him, waving his arms.  


  
  


  
Suddenly, the child disappeared, and the fields burned with uncontrolled fires. John spun around. The sound of screaming seemed to come from everywhere. The village was on fire as well, and he watched as someone—he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman—came running out of one of the little homes. Someone else followed. Its white hair glinting through the smoke-filled haze was unmistakable. John suddenly felt himself moving forward toward the Wraith.  


  
  


  
“No!” He yelled. His room formed around him, and he felt himself falling forward as he scrambled unsuccessfully to get his feet untangled from his bed sheets. He hit his face against the floor with a resounding smack.  


  
  


  
A flash of white, and he was back in the smoking ruins of the village. He looked around at the desiccated corpses littering the ground. People were still screaming, and he could smell flesh burning.  


  
  


  
He started gagging and found he was laying on his bedroom floor. He pushed up against the ground, finally freeing himself from his blankets. His head started to throb and he could taste bile in the back of his throat. He swallowed, but his stomach was churning with nausea. He flashed again on the village, saw it clean and untouched. Saw the young boy running toward him as he stood up from digging in the field. Saw the small, broken, desiccated body in the middle of the pathway leading to the burning village.   


  
  


  
He scrambled toward the bathroom that solidified around him as quickly as it had disappeared. He barely made it to the toilet before he was throwing up everything he had eaten earlier that day. His hands shook as he gripped the side of toilet bowl, and he felt like he was starting to hyperventilate. He swallowed a few times, trying to force his erupting stomach to calm down, and closed his eyes. He could barely keep his head up, and he rested it against the edge. The cool metal felt good pressed against his hot, sweat-covered forehead.  


  
  


  
He was lying on the ground, staring at the canopy of trees overhead. Heat flooded over one side of his body and he turned his head to see a small hut consumed in flames. The fire danced closer and he knew he was going to burn if he didn’t move, but he couldn’t make himself do anything. He lay there frozen, staring mesmerized into the bright flames until a sound above had him turn back toward the trees overhead.  


  
  


  
A Wraith, it’s face alight from the fire, sneered down at him. Its lips were pulled back in a snarl, revealing pointed, yellow teeth. John opened his mouth to scream, but the sound of the Wraith screeching drowned out his own voice as it slammed its feeding hand into his chest.  


  
  


  
John’s whole body jerked, and he barely had time to lift his head from the edge of the toilet bowl before he was throwing up again. He could barely pull in a breath before he was gagging and retching again. Sharp pains lanced through his stomach. There was nothing left for him to throw up, but his body continued its violent upheavals until he finally passed out and slumped down on the floor of the bathroom.

* * *

John opened his eyes slowly. He lay still for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dark light. The ground he was laying on was hard and cold, and he thought of a burning village and the hard ground and a house in flames next to him. He gasped at the memory and tried to sit up, but pain spiked through his head and he dropped back to the ground. He brought his hand up to his face and rubbed his eyes. He felt cold and grimy, and his back and neck were stiff, making him wonder how long he had been lying on the floor.

  
  


He looked around again, recognizing his bathroom. He sat up slowly this time, using the wall as support. His head spun and he swallowed against the dizziness-induced nausea. His stomach was sore, and he remembered crawling to the bathroom and throwing up until he passed out. The images of the nightmare had faded, luckily, but it had seemed so real at the time, like he was actually there in the village.

  
  


He eventually pulled himself up to a standing position and had to grip the counter so he wouldn’t fall over. He briefly wondered if he could just climb back into bed and forget the whole incident, but once glance at his reflection in the mirror told him that not only could he not get away with not telling Carson about it, he needed to tell Carson about it. He hated the infirmary, but whatever had happened to him last night was worse than the usual nightmares. His face was pale and he had dark circles under his eyes. There was also a large purplish bruise growing on the side of his head. He vaguely remembered smacking his cheek on the ground as he fell out of bed. He splashed his face and rinsed out his mouth, noticing as he did so that his hands were shaking badly. He wanted a shower but knew he didn’t have the energy for it. He also wanted to change into some clothes, but opted to stumble his way to the infirmary in jogging pants and t-shirt instead.

  
  


  
He kept one hand on the wall as he walked. It was early in the morning and while he saw a few people walking back and forth in the distance, he never actually passed anyone. His legs were shaking now too, and he cursed himself for not calling the infirmary on his radio and asking for help.It hadn’t occurred to him to call for help at first, and now he was over halfway there. He trudged forward, forcing his legs to move and support his weight. He felt himself leaning more and more heavily on the wall, and the pain in his head had tripled.  


  
  


He staggered, and the mysterious metal corridor that had haunted his dreams over the last few weeks suddenly appeared again. He tried to look around, but whoever’s eyes he was looking out of continued to look ahead down the endless, empty hallway. 

  
  


John shook his head and pressed his fingers into his eyes until it hurt. When he opened his eyes again, he was on his knees in Atlantis. He could see the doors to the infirmary from where he was, so he dragged himself up and continued his slow journey.

  


‘ 

  


He stumbled into the infirmary right as a nurse walked past. She yelped in surprise, dropping the armload of freshly laundered sheets as John let go of the door and swayed unsupported. The nurse grabbed his arm, steadying him and calling for Beckett at the same time.

  
  


“Colonel, what’s wrong? What happened?” Beckett asked as he came flying out of his office. He looked John over, and the shock of seeing the colonel’s disheveled appearance, pale face, and the large purplish bruise on the side of his head registered clearly on his face. John had a death grip on the nurse, and as Beckett stepped up, he grabbed the doctor’s arm. He had yet to answer the doctor’s question but didn’t trust himself to speak yet. It was taking all of his energy and focus not to keel over.

  
  


“John?” Carson asked again. John could feel his whole body shaking now. He had no idea if it was from lack of sleep, throwing up, or the nightmarish visions that kept intruding into his life.

  
  


Carson must have realized John was barely remaining upright. “We’re going to move you to a bed. Can you make it?”

  
  


  
John kept his eyes closed but he nodded his head slightly. He felt Carson and the nurse shift to get a better grip around his waist and then they were moving forward slowly. His legs tried to buckle on him, but Carson was ready for it and managed to keep him from falling flat on his face. Finally, the trio reached the bed and John, with a sigh of relief, felt himself slipping into unconsciousness as the nurse and Beckett eased him back.

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

Carson Beckett dropped into the last chair around the conference room. He rubbed at his face, trying to shake off some of the exhaustion and helplessness he felt before looking up at the concerned faces of Sheppard’s team and Elizabeth. He had no answers for them, and he dreaded the onslaught of questions that would be flung at him.  


“Thank you all for coming,” Elizabeth started. “As you all know, John came into the infirmary this morning sick. When Carson said he needed to talk to me about John’s condition, I thought you three should be included in that discussion.” The three teammates nodded gratefully at this. Elizabeth turned toward her chief medical officer. “Carson, what can you tell us?”  


Beckett took a deep breath before answering, then forced himself to look at each one of John’s teammates in the eye. “Well, John is very sick.”   


Everyone nodded, waiting quietly for him to continue. Even Rodney was quiet, and there was no disguising the concern on his face.  


“When he came to the infirmary this morning, he was barely able to stand up, and he passed out almost as soon as we got him into bed. He has woken up briefly a few times since then and explained a little of what has been happening to him.” Carson took another breath and stared down at his hands. He could see Rodney shifting in his chair, and it was obvious the scientist was losing patience as Beckett’s explanation got under way.  


“Last night, he woke up from a fairly vivid nightmare and threw up in the bathroom until he passed out. When he woke up, he stumbled to the infirmary. His pulse and blood pressure were dangerously high. He was also sweating, running a slight temperature, and was having some trouble catching his breath. He seems to be suffering from an intense headache that is not letting up no matter what I give him, and he is still plagued by bouts of dizziness.”  


“Why?” Rodney finally interrupted. “What’s doing this to him?”  


Carson stared at Rodney for a minute before answering. “I don’t know.”  


“What do you mean you don’t know? How can you not know?” Rodney exploded, just as Carson had expected.  


“Rodney,” Teyla said softly, resting her hand lightly on his arm. Rodney, surprisingly, clamped his mouth shut and sat back, but he snapped his fingers impatiently at Carson to continue.  


“I’ve run every test I can think of, but they aren’t showing anything. His MRI was clear, his blood tests came back clean, even his blood pressure and heart rate came down of their own accord. He has a horrible headache, but other than the nightmares, there’s nothing wrong with him that I can find and treat.”  


“Did he tell you anything about the nightmares?” Elizabeth asked.  


“Aye, he did, although he’s mentioned them before. The most recurring one is of walking down a gray, empty corridor. He has no idea where the corridor is and he’s pretty sure it’s not somewhere he’s been before. There are also a number of nightmares involving being fed on by a Wraith.”  


“Well, that’s obvious where that nightmare is coming from.”  


“I don’t think it necessarily has to do with Kolya’s Wraith, but I’m sure that doesn’t help. Colonel Sheppard said there are a number of different Wraith that feed on him—about five or six—but they come back. It’s always the same Wraith in the same setting each time. When the setting changes, a different Wraith shows up. It’s just bizarre that it’s that consistent…” Carson ’s voice trailed off as he thought about what that could mean. The others sat in silence for a moment, but Rodney clearing his throat jarred Carson out of his thoughts and he continued on. “He also dreams of different worlds—sometimes cities, sometimes villages. Some of them are destroyed, some of them seem to be thriving and normal. Alien, but relatively normal.”  


“And you believe these nightmares have something to with his illness?” Teyla asked.  


“It’s not like nightmares are uncommon around here,” Rodney added. Ronon, who had remained quiet throughout the discussion, leaned forward on the table and nodded in agreement, pinning Carson with a look.  


“These nightmares are not common. He seems to have them when he’s awake as well as asleep. The images are intruding on his senses and distorting his perception of reality. He also said he feels like he’s looking out of someone else’s eyes in each of one.”  


Rodney was the first one to realize the implications of this statement, and a look of panic crossed his face at the thought of something possessing Colonel Sheppard. “Does he know who?” He asked. When Carson shook his head, Rodney slammed his fists into the table. “So basically, Sheppard is either losing his mind or being controlled by some outside force that we know nothing about. Neither one of those scenarios is good. For any of us.”  


“I realize that, Rodney,” Carson said, the strain in his voice audible. “First of all, I don’t think it’s just one person. The way Colonel Sheppard talks about it, it’s a different person in each nightmare scenario, just as it’s a different Wraith for each of the Wraith scenes. Second, we don’t know that anyone’s controlling him. Sheppard said it feels more like he’s been dropped into someone else’s memories and reliving moments from their lives.   


“The problem right now is he doesn’t seem to have any control over _when_ he gets dropped into these memories. He could be wide awake and talking to one of us one moment, and the next moment watching his village burn to the ground or dying at the hands of a Wraith. Doctor Heightmeyer came in to talk to him earlier today, and while she still wants to have a few more sessions with him before drawing any definite conclusions, she does not believe that this is all just in his head.”  


“You mean he is actually traveling or dropping into other people’s memories?” Elizabeth asked, the shock in her voice clearly reflected on everyone else’s faces.  


“As far as we understand it, yes, and before you ask,” Carson looked pointedly at Rodney, who had begun to rub his forehead, “he doesn’t know any of the people he seems to be jumping into. He’s not falling into our memories, for instance.”  


“How is this even possible?” Teyla asked.  


“I have no idea,” Carson said, and slumped back in his chair. He had a headache of his own after the events of the last day.  


“When did this start?” Elizabeth asked.  


“About three weeks ago. When he was sick.”  


“When he died and came back, you mean,” Rodney muttered. He looked up suddenly at the faces of his worried friends around the table. “No, no, no, no. It started right after we went to that lake planet. I was getting some weird energy readings from the ruins when Sheppard…when I was interrupted. We should go back.”  


“Back to the planet with the lake?” Ronon piped up.  


“Yes, genius. Back to the planet with the lake,” Rodney snarked. He turned away from Ronon before the bigger man could glare at him, and looked at Elizabeth. “We’re still not even sure what happened there. I know we said we’d go back there eventually, but something happened to Sheppard at that place. If we want to figure it out, we have to go back there,” Rodney pleaded with Elizabeth.  


Teyla and Ronon were nodding their consent. Carson had watched their faces fill with hope as Rodney had talked, their trust in the obnoxious scientist unquestioned. Elizabeth glanced at him as if asking his opinion on the matter.  


“There’s nothing more that I can do,” he answered. “Maybe they’ll find something that will help John.” _At the very least, it would give them something to do_ , he thought.  


Elizabeth nodded. “Alright, you can go,” she said, turning to John’s team. “Do whatever you need to do to prepare and go. If we can find anything to help John, it will be worth it.”  


* * *

An hour later, Teyla met Ronon and Rodney at the doors of the infirmary. They had agreed to stop by and see Sheppard before they left, both to let him know what was going on and to reassure themselves that he was doing alright. Ronon and Rodney looked a little nervous as they entered the infirmary, allowing Teyla to take the lead. They walked toward the curtained-off section near the back and Teyla forced herself to relax. She wanted to look confident for her friend, and she didn’t want him to worry about his team while they were gone.  


As she caught her first view of John, she had to force the smile on her face to stay in place. He looked exhausted even while asleep. His face was pale and he had a large, ugly bruise covering half his face from when he’d stumbled out of bed the night before. He also hadn’t shaved since the day before, which made his face look even more gaunt. He twitched and jerked in his sleep, and Teyla wondered if he was having more of those nightmares. Ronon and Rodney stood quietly behind her.  


Teyla sat down in the chair next to John’s bed and gently held his hand. She noticed the band-aid covering the back of it from an IV that had since been removed. She took a deep breath, trying to find some calm and peace within herself, but she always felt   


a little shaken at seeing John so sick or injured in the infirmary.  


John shifted a little, squeezing her hand slightly as he slowly woke up. Ronon and Rodney grabbed some nearby chairs and sat down next to him as well. John blinked a few times, staring up at the infirmary ceiling for a moment before becoming aware that someone was holding his hand. When he saw Teyla, he smiled.  


“Hey,” he whispered, and Teyla thought even his voice sounded tired.  


“Hello, John. How are you feeling?”  


“I’m okay. Mostly just tired.”  


“You look like you’ve been hit by a truck,” Rodney piped up.  


“Thanks, McKay.” John glared at Rodney, and Teyla had to resist rolling her eyes when Rodney’s face lit up at Sheppard’s disgruntled look.  


“We are going on a mission, but we wanted to see you first,” Teyla said, drawing John’s attention back to herself.  


“What mission? Where to?”  


“We’re going back your lake planet—Ow!” Rodney yelped as Ronon elbowed him hard in the arm.  


“Your nightmares began soon after we returned from our last mission. We wanted to investigate it a little more, perhaps discover the cause of your illness,” Teyla continued.  


“You don’t have to do this,” John began. He frowned at his team, unable to keep the concern and worry from his voice.  


“Yeah, we do, Sheppard,” Ronon answered.  


“Do not worry about us, John. We will be careful and we will return safely.”  


“Remember those energy readings in the ruins?” At John’s blank look, Rodney shrugged. “Well, at any rate, there might be something there that can help us…you.”  


John nodded. Teyla watched his eye lids beginning to droop and decided they needed to leave so he could get some rest, but before she could say anything, she saw him gasp and stiffen. His eyes were wide open, but he stared unseeing, and his grip was so tight on Teyla’s hand that it almost hurt.  


“John, what’s wrong?” Teyla squeezed his hand back. When he didn’t answer, Rodney jumped up.  


“I’ll get Beckett.”  


Teyla nodded then focused her attention back on John. His eyes were now shut tight and his mouth pulled back in a grimace. She could hear the beeping on the heart monitor increase as he began to pant.  


“John?” She asked again, touching the unbruised side of his face.  


John suddenly relaxed underneath her. It took a moment for his heart rate and breathing to slow, but eventually his eyes fluttered open. He looked up at Teyla for a moment a little confused.  


“John, Carson is on his way,” she said.  


“It’s okay. I’m okay,” he answered. His voice was low and rough.  


“It was another one of those nightmares, wasn’t it?”  


John turned his head to look at Ronon. The Satedan was also standing up and peering down at Sheppard in concern. John nodded his head.  


“Was it the gray hallway?” Teyla asked.  


“No. Wraith. It was one of the Wraith.”  


At that moment, Carson and Rodney came up. Carson began checking the monitoring equipment surrounding John, but he moved slowly and methodically. He caught Teyla’s eye and shrugged. There was really nothing he could do for John at this point. Teyla inclined her head in acknowledgement.  


“John, we must leave now, but we will return shortly. Rest.”  


John nodded, waving slightly as his team retreated and left the infirmary. Teyla glanced back one last time and saw him shiver slightly as Beckett pulled down his gown to listen to his heart and lungs. She watched him a moment as he fell into a fitful sleep before the doctor had even finished his exam.

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

“McKay, hurry it up,” Ronon griped. The wind whipped his hair around his head and the tree they were huddled under gave little protection against the downpour. They’d stepped through the gate into a massive thunderstorm, and had considered turning around and heading straight back to Atlantis, but thoughts of Sheppard in the infirmary convinced them to forge ahead.  


“This is so weird,” Rodney muttered. He tapped at the data pad in his hand and grunted. He’d been doing that almost since they’d arrived, and Ronon was losing his patience.  


“Did you find anything or not?” He asked, raising his voice to be heard over the gusts of wind ripping through the trees.  


“It’s not here anymore,” Rodney yelled back.  


“What do you mean, Rodney?” Teyla squatted down to look at the data pad Rodney was holding.  


Rodney tapped it with his finger. “The energy readings from last time. They’re gone. There’s nothing here anymore.”  


“Did you not say they fluctuated in and out last time?”  


“There’s no fluctuating this time. Everything’s dead.”  


“What about the lake, where John fell?” Teyla pressed.  


“I’m not getting anything, from anywhere—not the lake, not the ruins. Nothing.”  


Ronon screamed into the storm, letting loose the frustration of feeling helpless. The storm seemed to answer back with a crack of thunder that shook the ground. A bolt of lightening split the sky, striking the center of the lake. The shore on the far side briefly lit up at the sudden light before plunging back into darkness.  


“There’s nothing here,” Rodney said again. He stood up, putting his data pad back into his bag. “Let’s go home.”  


“Just give up?” Ronon asked. “Just like that?”  


“We’ve been here for over four hours, and this storm has, if anything, gotten stronger. If there’s something here to find—which I’m not picking up on my scanner anyway—we’re not going to find it in this weather.”  


“We can return when the storm has passed,” Teyla said, although whether she was trying to convince Ronon or herself was not clear.  


“Sure, fine. We can return later. Whatever. Let’s go.”  


* * *

John was exhausted. The bone-deep, sleep-for-a-week type of exhaustion. He shuffled along the hallways of Atlantis, sticking to the side as scientists and military personnel rushed back and forth past him, almost oblivious to him. The military personnel at least tried to acknowledge him with a nod or a smile. Sheppard just smiled back, too weary to carry on much of a conversation.  


His team had come back two days earlier empty-handed, and while he was glad for their efforts, he was frustrated that they hadn’t found anything. They had returned to the planet again that morning—now that the storm had passed—and again found nothing. His team had argued about returning a third time, and talk of new equipement and expanding the search area had left all of them—John included—tired and as frustrated as ever.  


John was starting to feel like he’d never get back to normal. The visions continued, mostly at night, which meant he rarely got more than a few hours of sleep at a time. He was sick of the infirmary as well, but Carson seemed to recognize his need for space and had negotiated a compromise with him. John could leave the infirmary on his own for meals, but he had to return for naps, check-ups, and to sleep at night. John had groaned at this, but it was better than nothing.  


It was nearing lunchtime now, and he had planned to meet his team for lunch in the mess. It was still somewhat early, so the halls weren’t as crowded as they would be in another hour or so, allowing John the leisure of walking at his own pace. He turned down a side corridor, noticing that it was devoid of people, and was a little surprised at the relief he felt. His fatigue made it hard for him to track the quick movements of many people, and the emptiness of the hallway in front of him was suddenly very inviting.  


About halfway down the corridor, he staggered and slammed his shoulder into the wall. The sudden dizziness caught him by surprise and he reached a hand out to grab the wall and ground himself. The dizziness didn’t let up after a few seconds like it usually did, though.  


He saw a flash of white and he was walking down the alien corridor, then another flash of light and he was standing on a catwalk overlooking a thriving metropolis. He felt himself slide to his knees. Another flash of light and a Wraith was slamming its hand into his chest, then another flash and he was standing in the middle of a burning farm field, the screams of villagers having their life sucked out of them echoing in his head.  


John groaned, holding his head in his hands. He could hear himself panting and knew he was kneeling on the floor of an empty hallway in Atlantis, but the images from his nightmares continued to flash. Over and over again, like someone was flipping channels on a TV. Village, Wraith, fire, corridor, Wraith, corridor, farm field, Wraith, corridor, city, corridor. His head felt like it was imploding. The images continued, faster and more vivid than ever before, drowning out his own reality in Atlantis so that he didn’t feel himself collapse on the floor.  


* * *

“You’re calculations are all wrong. Let me see that again,” Rodney griped, ripping Radek Zelenka’s PDA from his hands. Zelenka rolled his eyes, used to his friend’s erratic behavior. He waited patiently while Rodney muttered under his breath and looked over the calculations he’d worked on all morning. The two walked through the hallways of Atlantis toward the mess hall.  


Rodney glanced up as Radek pulled on his arm and realized he’d narrowly missed walking into the wall. He grunted and Radek used the distraction to grab his PDA back. The calculations were sound—McKay had seen that immediately—but their implication didn’t make sense.   


“We’re missing something,” he fumed, flailing his arms. Radek ducked the errant hand and pulled on Rodney’s arm again when the irate physicist began making a wrong turn. It wasn’t quite lunchtime, but more and more people were making their way toward the mess. As they neared it, Rodney saw the line of people already forming and groaned. He waved his hand down a far hallway, ignoring the glare of a Marine standing nearby who narrowly missed getting clocked in the nose, and began walking toward it, hoping to at least get in the mess hall before cutting in line. Radek jogged to catch up with him.

  


“If we are missing something, then it is you that missed it. All calculations are based on the data you collected from that moon.”

  


“Oh, thanks. Blame it all on me, Radek.”

  


“You are one who wanted to determine the trajectory of—”

  


“Whoa, stop,” Rodney grabbed on to the wall as Zelenka ran into his back not expecting Rodney’s abrupt halt in the middle of the hall.

  


“What is it, Rodney?” He asked.

  


Instead of answering, Rodney backed up and peered down a narrow hallway jutting off the main hallway. He had never noticed this hallway even existed, but something about it had caught his eye. He took a step, searching for whatever had caught his wandering attention.

  


“What is that?” Radek asked, pointing at the far end. Rodney opened his mouth to retort, but then stopped, his eyes going wide. Radek must have realized what he was pointing at as well when he suddenly gasped.

  


Rodney took off running down the hall, Radek close on his heels. As he got closer, his heart began thudding in trepidation. The pale man lying on the floor, his dark, spiky hair damp with perspiration, was instantly recognizable. Rodney quickened his pace and dropped to his knees next to Sheppard.

  


“Sheppard?” He called, shaking the man’s shoulder. He could hear Zelenka calling for a medical team in the background, but all his focus was on his friend. “Colonel? Wake up!” He snapped his hands in front of Sheppard’s face, then tapped his cheek, all to no avail. Sheppard did not even flinch.

  


“Come on, Sheppard. Don’t do this to me,” he muttered. He reached for a pulse, noting that John’s skin was pale and clammy. He seemed to be breathing hard, like he’d just sprinted across the pier. Rodney found his pulse quickly, and while it seemed to be exceedingly fast, at least it was there. He looked up at the sound of the medical team coming around the corner and running toward them, Beckett in the lead.

  


“Hang on, Sheppard. Beckett’s coming. Just hang on,” Rodney said. He watched John’s eyes moving quickly under his eyelids. He put his hand on the unconscious man’s chest and felt heat radiating through the Colonel’s black t-shirt.

  


“What happened?” Beckett asked, dropping to Sheppard’s side and beginning to evaluate his patient. Rodney glanced up at Radek, who stared at the scene in shock, before answering the Scottish doctor.

  


“I don’t know. We just found him like this.”

  


Carson mumbled something in acknowledgment but continued to focus on John. Rodney watched intently as he grabbed the oxygen mask one of the nurse’s held out to him, but before he could slip it on, Rodney felt John’s body jerk underneath the hand that still rested on his friend’s chest. He looked down at his hand in shock, noticing that as he did so, John’s body jerked again.

  


“Carson?” He asked, unable to keep the panic from his voice.

  


“Kim, get something to put under his head,” Carson yelled, ignoring Rodney. Rodney watch as Carson grabbed the side John’s face, his hands gentle considering the tense situation.

  


“John, come on, lad,” he murmured.

  


John’s body began to jerk in earnest, and Rodney recognized he was going into a seizure. He grabbed John’s nearest arm as it slammed into the floor.

  


“He’s seizing,” Carson called out, unable to keep the urgency of the situation out of his own voice. “Get that gurney over here.” The doctor continued to hold onto John’s head, trying to keep the man from injuring himself. Rodney could feel the muscles in John’s arm and chest spasm underneath his hands. He looked up in alarm at the sound of Sheppard’s stuttered breathing. One of the nurse’s held the oxygen mask over his face.

  


All at once, John went completely limp under his hands. Rodney glanced up at Carson, terrified, but the doctor was already signaling to the nurses to bring the gurney closer. The mask was now fixed firmly on John’s face, and Rodney breathed a small sigh of relief at the faint condensation inside the mask indicating Sheppard’s rapid breathing. John’s face was ashen now and his hair and skin slick with sweat. They moved him quickly onto the gurney and were soon running down the hallway. Rodney didn’t realize he was still holding onto Sheppard’s arm until they reached the infirmary and he was forced to wait outside.  


* * *

 **Chapter 7**

The Wraith slammed his hand into his chest. He screamed, and a little boy ran toward him waving his arms, bouncing across a farm field on a sunny day. He stood on a catwalk overlooking an advanced city, and another Wraith on another planet at another time threw him to the ground, snarling, and then he was standing up, stretching his back after digging up the roots that plagued his crop fields, squinting in the sunlight looking for his son, his wife, his brother, the Wraith. It was raining and windy, then night, then sunny again.

The images swirled around in John’s mind, jerking him from one place to another. He was growing dizzy and sick, and he felt hot and cold at the same time. He reached out for Atlantis, for home, but everything he touched seemed to disappear. His thoughts were brutally torn from him as he fell second by second into each man’s memories.

And over all of them, the smooth, gray corridor. Slowly, the gray corridor became the dominant image and John found himself more and more often moving silently around the curve of the corridor, always moving forward but never arriving.

Gradually, the light in the corridor changed, and then he found himself standing in front of a large window in the otherwise empty hallway. He looked out, but all he could see was blue—a deep, brilliant, mesmerizing blue that seemed to glow and cast a bluish haze down the entire hallway.

* * *

“Rodney, if you don’t pipe down, I’m going to have the Marines drag you out of here by your ear.”

“You wouldn’t,” Rodney said, staring appalled at the irate doctor. Carson narrowed his eyes, trying to convey how serious he was about his threat.

“Why won’t he wake up?” Rodney asked when Carson just stared him down, changing the subject suddenly although in a much lower voice.

Carson sighed, shrugging his shoulders. His anger abated immediately, replaced with concern for the comatose John Sheppard. “I don’t know, Rodney. His brainwaves were all over the place. They’ve almost settled back down to normal, but…”

“Is he going to be okay, though? Carson, just tell me. Is he going to be _him?_ ”

Carson bit his lip and the wave of emotion that overcame him. He tried to get a grip on his own worries and fear, but the pleading in Rodney’s voice was too much to ignore. He laid a hand on Rodney shoulder in comfort.

“We’re doing all we can for him, Rodney, but I can’t—” A sudden change in the rhythm of John’s heart monitor cut off anything further he was about to say. He scanned the information on the monitors, then bent down to examine John himself.

“What is it? What happened?” Rodney asked, coming around to the other side of the bed. He too looked down at Sheppard.

Carson ignored Rodney and bent closer to John. “Colonel, wake up,” he said loudly. The two waited in anticipation, but all they got from John was a slight twitch in his eye. Carson grabbed John’s hand, squeezing it firmly and tried again. “John, open your eyes, lad. I need you to wake up.”

They were rewarded with a little more movement on John’s part, and Carson could feel John weakly gripping his hand back.

“That’s it, John. Open your eyes,” he coaxed. He let go of John’s hand to rub his knuckles against the sick man’s chest. This elicited even more movement and a soft groan. John turned his head toward Carson’s voice but couldn’t seem to open his eyes.

“John, can you hear me?” Carson grabbed Sheppard’s hand, noting that his patient’s pulse and breathing had picked up. “If you can hear me, I need you to squeeze my hand.”

Carson smiled at the slight but immediate pressure on his hand. “That’s it, lad.” He glanced up at Rodney, surprised the physicist hadn’t said anything yet, but Rodney lived quickly up to his voluble reputation.

“Almost two days, Sheppard. Two freaking days. Do you know what you’ve done to my blood pressure?” He griped, but he was smiling and seemed to be sagging into himself with relief.

“Probably not, but I do,” Carson answered. “Sit down already before you have a stroke.”

The sudden release of tension after the last two days seemed to suck all of McKay’s energy. For once, he listened to the doctor and fell back into the chair he’d occupied for over a day.

“Stay with me for a few more minutes, John,” Carson said as he continued to check John over, but Sheppard quickly fell back asleep.

* * *

“How is John doing?” Teyla asked walking quickly into the infirmary. She was breathing a little heavier than usual, giving away the fact that she’d run all the way to the infirmary.

“He’s fine, love. He’s sleeping at the moment,” Carson answered.

“I saw Rodney. He said John had awoken earlier this afternoon.”

“Aye, he did, briefly—although he was too weak to even open his eyes at the time. You can sit with him if you’d like. We’ll probably try to wake him up again in a little bit.”

Teyla nodded gratefully and made her way over to John’s bed. He looked the same as he had during the previous two days, but she trusted Carson’s medical abilities. She held his hand, hoping he would wake up at her touch, but was content to sit back in the chair and wait with him when he didn’t. Weariness pulled at her, but she resisted the urge to doze off. She hadn’t had much sleep since she’d heard of John’s collapse. None of the team had.

Teyla rubbed her temples, trying to ease some of the tension. John had been sick off and on for almost a month now, and no one could explain what was happening. Every day was a gut wrenching battle between fear and anger and worry and frustration. She leaned forward in her chair, bring her face close to John’s.

“Wake up, John, please,” she whispered.

The blue light was everywhere. John tried to move away from the window, but he was stuck there, staring into blue nothing. It almost had a shape, and at times seemed to be moving, but otherwise it was an inchoate, cold, blue mass that whoever’s eyes he was looking through could not turn away from. All the other nightmarish images had disappeared but this one—the gray hallway with the blue windows.

He heard a whisper and tried unsuccessfully to turn the head glued to the windows. He couldn’t make out the voice or any words, but he was suddenly filled with warmth. He strained again for the sound. He almost recognized it; he was sure he knew whatever or whoever it was. The whisper sounded again and the light around the window began to change and dissolve. He could move his head now, and he turned toward the sound that was so close to his ear.

 _Wake up, John._

He heard it again, heard the words. This time he recognized the soft, calming voice. Teyla. He tried to reach out to her, but darkness was falling on him fast. He turned around, expecting to see the blue windows again, but everything was fading. His throat constricted, making him feel like he was suffocating. He heard the whisper again. Teyla. He had to find her. Teyla.

“….ttt….ll’..aammmmm…” he groaned. The sound of his own voice, weak as it was, surprised him, and his eyes flew open.

Teyla leaned forward, whispering quietly to John, and was surprised to see him react to the sound of her voice. His eyes began to move rapidly under his lids, and he turned toward her. She stood up, catching the attention of a nearby nurse and telling her to fetch Doctor Beckett. When she looked back down at John, he was moaning and thrashing weakly. His movements were slow and uncoordinated, and she thought she heard him say her name, but his voice was low and hoarse and came out more as a groan than anything. She leaned toward him again, smoothing his hair back with one hand and gripping his hand with the other.

“John, it is alright. It is me, Teyla. Wake up, John.”

His eyes flew open and Teyla reared back in shock, not expecting him to wake up so quickly. His eyes slid closed again almost immediately, so Teyla squeezed his hand.

“John?” She called out, a little louder.

John’s eyes began to flutter, and he groaned. He was becoming more and more agitated. Carson Beckett ran over quickly, and Teyla smiled in relief as the doctor took charge, but she stayed close to John and kept a firm grip on his hand.

“John, lad, open your eyes for me,” Carson commanded. He put his hands on either side of John’s head, forcing it to stay still for a moment. Slowly, John cracked his eyes open. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the light. It took him more than a few seconds to finally focus on the doctor standing over him. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.  
Teyla watched him lick his lips and swallow convulsively, and she realized he was probably thirsty.

Carson, for his part, was beaming at the fact that his briefly comatose patient was now awake. Relief was mixed in as well, drowning out concern for just a few seconds. Carson kept his hands on John’s face, noticing how long it took for John to focus on him. Sheppard seemed completely unaware of his surroundings otherwise.

“Do you know where you are?” Carson asked loudly but clearly. He waited a moment, watching as John opened and closed his mouth. Teyla was suddenly holding out a glass of water with a straw. Carson held the straw to John’s lips, supporting John’s head with his other hand.  
John’s reactions were obviously delayed. It took him a minute to react to the straw prodding him in the lips, but when he finally did take a sip of water, he relaxed. He began to gulp the water down too fast to swallow and was suddenly coughing.

Carson pulled the straw away but kept his hand under John’s head and waited for the coughing to subside. He turned John’s head so the colonel was looking straight at him.

“John, do you know where you are?” He asked. John’s eyes looked dull and he belatedly flicked his eyes around the room. He coughed quietly but otherwise made no attempt to answer the doctor.

Carson gripped John’s hand, squeezing it to get the man’s attention. Again, his reactions were slow, but he eventually focused on the doctor.

“John, I need you to squeeze my hand. Do you understand?” He paused, waiting for a response, and smiled at the slight pressure he suddenly felt. John’s grip was weak, but it was there.

“Good lad,” Carson said. He pulled his hand out from under John’s head and let the man relax against the pillow. He grabbed his penlight and flashed it in Sheppard’s eyes, then grunted and muttered something about “sluggish reactions” and “disoriented.”

John squeezed his eyes shut against the little light and turned his head away from Beckett. Slowly, he opened his eyes again, blinking away the after images. Teyla bent down to look him and smiled when he noticed her for the first time.

“Teyla?” John whispered. He made almost no sound as he spoke, but Teyla was close enough to hear his strangled whisper.

“Yes, John. You are home. You are safe.” She grabbed his hand and felt him grip her hand back. Before she could say anything else, she saw his eyelids beginning to droop.  
“Rest, John. We will be here for you when you awaken again,” she said.

John’s eyes immediately slid shut and his breathing evened out. Within seconds, he was fast asleep. Teyla watched him sleep for a moment before turning toward the doctor.

“Is he alright, Carson?”

“Hard to say. He’s been through quite an ordeal,” Carson answered. He glanced up at Teyla’s worried face. “The fact that he knew who you were right away is a good sign. We’ll need to run more tests, though. We’ll have a better idea of what’s going on tomorrow.”

Teyla nodded. Carson checked John over one more time then shuffled back to his office. Teyla couldn’t bring herself to let go of John’s hand, and she sat next to her friend long into the night, hoping he would recover from this latest incident.

* * *

 **Chapter 8**

John did recover, but slowly, and again not because of anything Carson Beckett did. The first week after the seizure, he spent most of the time asleep. The few minutes at a time that he was awake, he was exhausted, plagued almost constantly by the dreams. He was however, coherent enough to see the worry and guilt etching itself into the good doctor’s face.

“John,” Carson called. “John, wake up now.”

John was standing in front of the blue window, unable to turn away. The top of the window seemed a little brighter than usual, like seeing the sun from deep underwater. Most of the other dreams—the Wraith, the city, the burning village—had faded, but this dream remained. Every time he closed his eyes, he was walking down the gray, metal corridor until he arrived at the blue window.

“John, come on, lad. Open your eyes.”

Carson’s voice pulled at him, and the window slowly disappeared to be replaced by the infirmary and the concerned eyes of the doctor. John blinked up at him.

“Hey, doc,” he mumbled.

Carson gave him a brief smile, his shoulders sagging in relief. “Hey, John.”

John lay quietly while Beckett went through his usual checks—heart, lungs, temperature, blood pressure. His eyes were getting heavy already, but he fought to stay awake for at least a little bit longer.

“How’m I doing?” He asked.

Carson shrugged. “Well enough, I suppose. Worries me a little, how long it takes to wake you up.”

“Mmm…” John was drifting off to sleep again.

“Hey, hey, hey. Stay with me.”

John opened his eyes again. “Sorry, doc.”

“It’s alright, lad. Think you can stay awake for a little while longer? You need to get some food in you.”

“’kay,” he answered. The bed moved underneath him, and a few seconds later he found himself partially sitting up. He could feel himself sliding to the side, but he was still groggy and couldn’t seem to get his arms moving fast enough to catch himself. Carson finished adjusting the bed, then gripped John under the arms. He lifted him up like a rag doll and set him straight again.

“Thanks,” John mumbled.

Carson sat down on the chair next to the bed. “How are the dreams?” He asked.

“Mostly just that gray corridor. I walk down it till I reach a window, but outside the window everything is just this bright blue color. It’s weird. It’s like I can’t tear my eyes away from this window.”

“And the other dreams?”

John shook his head. “Gone, for the most part. Can’t explain it.”

Carson sighed. “Neither can I.”

“Hey, doc, look. Don’t beat yourself up over this. You’re doing everything you can,” John said, looking intently at his friend.

“Aye, I know. I just hate seeing you suffering like this and I can’t do anything to help it.”

“Yeah…” John’s voice trailed off. He could feel the exhaustion in every part of his body. If he had the energy for it, he’d be getting angry or frustrated. He’d been sick for almost a month now, bedridden completely for the last week. If he wasn’t so tired all the time, he’d be climbing the walls.

“Hey, hey, John, wake up.”

John blinked his eyes open, not realizing he had drifted off again. He looked over at Carson, who was studying him with some concern.

“Sorry, just so tired…”

“I know, son. Your body’s been through quite the ordeal recently. You are recovering, albeit slowly.” At John’s raised eyebrows, Carson rushed on. “Three days ago, you couldn’t stay awake for more than three minutes.”

John grunted at that, but before he could say anything, a nurse arrived with a tray of food. It smelled good, and John realized he was a little hungry.

“Eat as much as you can. It’ll do you good,” Carson said as he stood up. He patted John’s shoulder as the nurse settled down next to the sick man. “I’ll check up on you later.”

John nodded as Carson disappeared into the infirmary, then turned his attention to the nurse and the tray of food in front of him. He really was hungry.

* * *

John stepped into his quarters and breathed a sigh of relief. It had been two and a half weeks since he’d last stepped foot in his room, and it felt good. He sat down on the edge of the bed and noticed that someone had recently changed the sheets. He smiled, wondering which member of his team had thought of that. His room was neat, as usual, but there was a thin film of dust over most surfaces, revealing how long it had been since he’d actually lived in his room.

John lay back on his bed, tired already. Beckett had run a series of tests before finally releasing him from the infirmary, and then John had insisted he be allowed to walk back to his own room. He thought back over the past month and a half, from almost drowning to near pneumonia to ear infections to seizures and endless, bizarre nightmares throughout it all. He relaxed into the pillow, relief that his run of poor health seemed to have run its course. For the first time in weeks, he felt like he was finally getting back to normal.

The door chime rang, and John’s eyes flew open. He hadn’t realized he’d dozed off. He yelled at whoever was at the door to come in, assuming it was either his team or Beckett, and glanced at the clock on the stand next to his bed. He’d only been asleep for an hour, maybe less. Just as he predicted, his team walked into his room bearing trays of food.

“John, we did not mean to wake you,” Teyla said, concern coloring her voice.

“That’s alright,” John said, sitting up. “I just dozed off for a bit. Is that dinner?”

“Carson said you’d still be tired and that one of us should bring you some food,” Rodney answered, setting his tray down on the table. “We decided to all come, since it’s been awhile since we’ve had a ‘team dinner,’ so to speak.”

“Smells great.” John shook off the last of the grogginess and walked over to the table. Ronon, who had two trays in his hand, slid one of them over to John.

They dug into their food, laughing and chatting well after the food was all gone. John was having a hard time keeping his head up, and his back ached from sitting in the chair for so long, but he didn’t want the evening to end. It wasn’t until his eyes drooped so low and his body slumped to the side—forcing both Ronon and Teyla to grab him before he fell off the chair completely—that he allowed his teammates to lead him away from the table and help him into bed.

“Thanks, guys,” he mumbled once he was in bed. “Needed that…”

Teyla was pulling up the covers and making sure he was tucked in. “So did we, John,” she replied, but he was already snoring softly, ensconced in a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

Two weeks later, John was feeling fully recuperated. And bored. He’d been stuck on light duty and grown sick of paperwork within two days, wondering what it was about Earth culture that required the tedious task of pushing papers around a desk to follow him to another galaxy. He’d spent the last week with a couple of groups of scientists and military personnel exploring parts of the city, but the excitement of that had worn off quickly. He wanted to go off world.

He hadn’t had a single dream in almost two weeks. His headaches had all but disappeared, as had his bouts of dizziness. He had still been nervous, though, at his check-up a couple of days earlier with Beckett, so when the good doctor had cleared him for full duty, including off-world travel, he’d been surprised, then relieved, then joyful. Carson had shaken his head at John’s almost boyish excitement, but John hadn’t cared. He’d immediately gone to Weir to tell her the good news and get his team back on the roster for off-world missions.

Their first mission in over two months would normally have had John groaning in despair—a cakewalk visit to a planet friendly with the Athosians—but this time, John was up at the crack of dawn and in the gate room twenty minutes earlier, ready to go.

“A little excited about this, don’t you think?” Elizabeth teased.

John just grinned, too happy with the prospect of getting back to work to come up with a witty retort. Ronon was the next to arrive, almost as excited as John to be going out with his team again. Teyla and Rodney arrived last, still five minutes before they were scheduled to leave.

“Finally,” John exclaimed, almost bouncing with impatience. Rodney rolled his eyes, but Teyla smiled at her team leader’s anxiousness. “Let’s go already.”

“Good luck,” Elizabeth called. “Be safe.”

John waved, and was soon stepping through the gate. He emerged into bright world, and he sniffed the fresh air. Every world had a slightly alien scent—some good, some bad. This world, thankfully, was of the former, and John took a deep breath, filling his lungs with slightly spicy smelling air. His teammates emerged from the gate behind him, and together they headed down the well-worn dirt path through the grassy meadow toward the distant tree line.

“How long have you known these people?” Ronon asked.

“Many, many years, although we do not have frequent contact with them,” Teyla answered. “Most of what they produce, they consume, but the little extra they do have, they trade fairly.”

They walked on in amicable silence the rest of the way. The path continued through the trees, and Teyla informed them the nearest village was about an hour’s walk. The fact that Rodney didn’t even so much as groan at the distance spoke to his own excitement about being off world with the team.

The woods were quiet, only the occasional chirp of a bird making a sound as the four hiked along the path. After about an hour, John began to look around for signs of a village or people, thinking they should be coming upon them fairly soon. Up ahead, the woods opened up into a second meadow.

“I believe we are here,” Teyla announced, walking ahead.

As John stepped out into the meadow, he could see a clump of houses at the far end snuggled against the base of a mountain, and the hairs on the back of his head suddenly stood on end. There was no sound or movement anywhere in the entire area. No smoke from the houses indicating that the village was actually inhabited. The others must have sensed something was wrong as well. They gripped their weapons, suddenly moving forward with caution.

“Something happened here,” Rodney whispered as they walked toward the seemingly abandoned village.

“Wraith,” Ronon answered. He was squatting a dozen or so yards ahead of the others, staring at something none of them could see. John stepped up to see what Ronon had found, dreading the sight he knew would confront him. A desiccated corpse with a gaping wound over its chest lay at Ronon’s feet. John looked around grimly.

“How long ago, do you think?” He asked.

“Hard to say,” Ronon grunted. “Few months, maybe.”

John nodded. They continued toward the village, compelled to check for possible survivors but quickly losing hope. If there had been survivors, they would have seen them by now.

John shivered. The empty meadow and dead village were creeping him out more than he cared to admit. He pressed forward, though, writing off his feelings of dread as a reaction to yet another Wraith attack and yet another decent group of people wiped out. But it was more than that. With every step he took, John could feel it. There was something different about this village and this Wraith attack. John took the lead, intent on finding out what had happened.

He came around a bend in the path, and the small, desiccated body of a child lying in the middle of the road sent him instantly staggering off to the side. He felt someone’s hand on his back—Teyla’s—supporting him as he gagged and retched. She whispered to him quietly, then helped him sit up and drink some water.

John was breathing hard. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. That body. That child. He knew that child. He felt himself being torn from reality and dropped into another time, and then he was standing in middle of a field, looking toward that same village, but this time it was alive with movement and the sound of people going about their daily lives. He had a shovel in his hand, and he leaned against it as he wiped the sweat and dirt from his brow. _This was his field, his farm, his village_ A small child ran toward him. _His_ child, waving his arms, his face bright and happy.

That same child was now lying in the road, dead. John squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again to see Teyla kneeling down next to him, her hand on his shoulder. She was talking to him, but he couldn’t seem to focus on what she was saying. He glanced over his shoulder, and the sight of the small body instantly had him throwing up again. He heaved the bit of water he had just drank, then heaved again and again until he thought he would pass out. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, his stomach quieted down and he sucked in lungfuls of air. Teyla was still there next to him, supporting him; Ronon and McKay somewhere behind him.

He sat up slowly, his stomach spasming after the abuse it had just suffered. Teyla held him up as she handed over her canteen and admonished him to drink small sips. She rubbed her hand over his back trying to soothe him. After a few sips, he handed the water back to her and frowned at how badly his hand with shaking.

“Are you alright now, John?” Teyla asked.

John nodded his head. He pushed himself up from the ground, and Teyla helped him to stand on shaky legs. With dread, he turned back toward road but the boy was gone. John met Ronon’s eyes, and knew the runner had moved the body off the road, out of sight. He nodded in gratitude even has his stomach did a little flip.

“Maybe we should just go back to Atlantis,” McKay said but John was already shaking his head.

“No, I have…we have to go forward. To the village. I have to see it.” John knew he was begging more than commanding, but he didn’t care. He knew this village. He knew what he was going to find, but still, he felt compelled to see it for himself.

Teyla hovered close by as the four of them slowly moved forward. She kept one hand on his arm as if she was afraid he would suddenly fall on his face. John felt hot and achy, and he realized falling flat on his face wasn’t that far from the truth.

John looked up toward the village, and in a flash of light he saw the fields and village burning with uncontrolled fires. Screams rent the air and seemed to echo all around him. Through the haze of smoke he saw people running in and out of the little homes followed by the Wraith moving steadily behind them. Their white hair glinted in the sun.

“John? John…”

John jerked, suddenly finding himself back in the present, surrounded by his team. He was still standing, but he was bent over with his hands on his knees. Teyla and McKay had him by his arms, their grips tightening when he swayed.

“Colonel, what’s wrong?”

“…m’kay…I’m okay,” he answered roughly.

“You’re not okay, Colonel. You’re very definitely not okay,” McKay responded.

“We need to get you home to Atlantis, John. Can you walk back to the gate?”

“No!” He yelled. He stood up, pulling against the hands supporting him. “I can’t go. Not yet. I have to see the village.”

“Why?” Ronon asked.

He looked around, seeing the concern and worry on the faces of his teammates. He wrapped his arms around his rebelling stomach and forced his feet to move forward. “I’ve been here. I know this place.”

“What do you mean, you’ve been here? We’ve never come here before,” said McKay.

“The dreams…this was the village I would see. That field back there was my field.” He waved his arm behind him and the others turned to look at the desolate, overgrown fields. “That child…that was my child,” he said, his voice breaking. His stomach clenched, but he forced the nausea down. Teyla gripped his arm, steadying him.

“I have to see,” he said. The others nodded, though not happily, and they walked the rest of the way to the village. John was shaking all over, leading Teyla to keep a tight grip on his arm. Ronon walked closely behind him, ready to leap forward and catch him if he were to suddenly fall. He felt cold now, and a headache was building behind his left eye.

They reached the edge of the tree line and instantly stepped into a shaded canopy of trees. Burnt out husks of houses surrounded them. It was deadly quiet still. The ground was littered with bodies, but John paid no attention to them. He plowed forward on shaky legs.

Even though the culling had taken place months earlier, John was suddenly overwhelmed with the smell of burning flesh. He gagged, but forced himself to keep moving. He had to see. He had to see.

A house came into view. In front of it, a body. He staggered forward and dropped to his knees in front of the body. The skin was dried out and stretched tight against the bones. He reached out tentatively toward the face.

“John?” Teyla asked. He hadn’t noticed her kneeling next to him.

He looked up at her, then up at the canopy of trees overhead. The light streaming through the leaves was sickeningly familiar. He could smell the smoke from the fires, hear the screams of people all around him. A flash, and he was lying on the ground, staring at the trees above him. Heat flooded over one side of his body and he turned his head to see the small house consumed in flames. His house. The fire danced closer and he knew he was going to burn if he didn’t move, but he was trapped. He couldn’t make himself do anything. He lay there frozen, knowing what was coming next.

“Sheppard,” Ronon called, shaking him. John was still kneeling on the ground.

“Me…it’s me…” He said. He looked back down at the body in front of him, at once mesmerized and repulsed by it. He stared at the eyes, now sunken and dead.

Another flash, and a Wraith sneered down at him. It’s face was alight from the fire, its lips pulled back in a snarl that revealed its rotten, pointed teeth. John opened his mouth to scream, but the sound of the Wraith screeching drowned out his own voice as it slammed its feeding hand into his chest.

John jerked back, away from the body. Ronon caught him as he fell to the ground, and his stomach bucked again. There was nothing left for him to throw up, but that didn’t stop his gag reflex. His head had exploded in pain as well, and he wrapped his arms protectively around it. He could hear his teammates yelling—at each other, at him…he didn’t care. He rolled over to the side, groaning and whimpering, oblivious to the tears falling down his face.

“Ronon!” Teyla’s voice hovered just above his head, tense and worried. He cracked his eyes open and saw Ronon running out of the village, back the way they had come.

“Hold on, John. Ronon has gone for help,” Teyla whispered. John felt himself shaking against her grip. He moaned again, unable to respond to her. The images played over and over again in his head. His fields, his farm, his son, the Wraith, his body lying dead and sightless in a burned out village.

“What are you doing, Rodney?”

John opened his eyes, trying to focus on his surrounding. Teyla was sitting in front of him, and he heard McKay moving around behind him.

“I’m just looking,” McKay answered, his voice a little breathless and higher pitched than normal.

“He is dead, Rodney. Leave his body be,” Teyla answered, and for a brief second John thought she was talking about him. _I’m not dead,_ he wanted to yell, and then he saw the Wraith above him as it slammed its hand into his chest and drained him of his life.

He choked on a screamed and bucked under Teyla’s desperate grasp. He tried to roll but she leaned forward, pushing him to the ground and crying out to him.

“John, sssshhh…It is alright, John,” she said, brushing his hair from his face. He was covered in a film of sweat, and his hair was plastered to his head. “Ssshhh…,” Teyla soothed. “Lie still. Ronon has gone for help.”

John whimpered, panting. He felt dizzy and his head was throbbing. Teyla’s face appeared above him, but every time he blinked, it changed into the Wraith, then back to Teyla. He reached out, trying to hold on to Teyla, begging that the image of the Wraith would disappear forever. He felt Teyla grab onto his hand and hold tight. Sharp pains lanced through his stomach, and he squirmed as he tried to ride through the pain.

“Hurts…” he whimpered.

“Where, John? Where is the pain?”

 _Everywhere. Head, stomach, chest,_ he tried to say, but he couldn’t form the words. He held onto Teyla’s hand, panting and moaning until the trees overhead disappeared into darkness.

* * *

 **Chapter 9**

Rodney McKay rushed through the halls of Atlantis, ignoring the cries and comments of scientists and marines alike as he pushed his way through the groups of people in his way. Four days. John Sheppard had been unconscious for four whole days so far. After his spectacular collapse at the dead village, then the mad rush back to Atlantis, Carson Beckett had come out and informed them that Sheppard was unresponsive for no reason that he could determine.

Rodney, in his worry, had ranted and raved about medicine and Beckett’s inability to do anything. Beckett, in his guilt, had then ranted and raved in return and kicked them all out of the infirmary. By the end of the first day, he announced that Sheppard’s body was shutting down, organ by organ, and Rodney had locked himself in his lab, determined to find a way to help his friend. When that hadn’t worked, he’d apologized profusely to Beckett and sat vigil by Sheppard’s side.

Sheppard had gone from pale on the planet to gray and ashen on Atlantis. It took all of Rodney’s willpower to sit there and watch his friend slowly degrade. But he sat there. Sheppard got bad enough that Beckett kicked him out the third day. He said goodbye, and wondered if it was _the_ goodbye.

That night had been possibly the longest night of his life. Rodney had lain awake, staring at his ceiling and waiting for the call from Beckett that John had died. When the call finally came, it was not what he had expected. Sheppard’s body had mysteriously reversed its downfall, and by the time dawn broke, Carson was cautiously optimistic. With Sheppard no longer on death’s door, Rodney’s thoughts turned back to the planet and the corpse that Sheppard had claimed had been him. Curiosity won out, and after easily recruiting Ronon and not so easily convincing Elizabeth to return to the planet, he’d managed to bring the corpse back to Atlantis to study. What he expected to find, he didn’t know, but he was sure he’d recognize it when he found it.

And he did find it, which was what had him rushing to the infirmary now. The body had been a body, just like any other. A medical scan had revealed that much. It had not revealed, however, a tiny almost microscopic computer chip. It had taken hours for McKay to find it on his own, but he had found it. Accidentally, but he had found it, buried in the left ocular cavity.

He wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, but that’s where Beckett came in. Rodney tightened his grip on the container holding the chip. As he ran, he suddenly thought of the planet with the clear blue lake, and of Sheppard lying on the beach with blood pooling into this left eye.

He rushed into the infirmary and almost bowled over Carson Beckett.

“That was fast,” Carson exclaimed, staggering backward.

“Fast? What? What was fast?”

“John wakes up, and less than thirty seconds after I inform Elizabeth, you come barreling through the door. _That_ was fast.”

“Sheppard’s awake?” Rodney rushed over to Sheppard’s bed, forgetting the chip in his hand for the moment. He found Teyla sitting by the side of the bed, holding onto Sheppard’s hand and talking quietly to him. Sheppard was still pale and half dead looking, but his eyes were open—well, kind of open—and he seemed to be following whatever Teyla was saying. A nurse on the other side finished whatever it was she was doing and moved away, smiling at McKay as she passed.

“He’s awake?”

Sheppard turned his head at the sound of Rodney’s voice, and raised his hand weakly in greeting.

“Oh, right.” Rodney stepped up to the bed. “So, uh, how are you feeling?”

“Head hurts pretty bad,” Sheppard rasped. His voice was low and hoarse, barely above that of a whisper. “Eye is throbbing.”

Rodney jerked, remembering what had brought him down to the infirmary in the first place. “Left eye?” At Sheppard’s nod, he turned around intent on finding Beckett. He made it a few steps, before spinning around and holding the container up.

“Found something,” he said. “Some kind of chip made of a material I’ve never seen before. It melds with living or organic tissue and becomes virtually impossible to detect. It’s not until you hold it against dead tissue, or something completely inorganic, that it even shows up on any of our sensors, and even then, I had to seriously adjust the scanners before I found this thing. Where’s Carson? Carson—” he rambled, and yelled, and disappeared from sight, leaving Teyla and Sheppard staring after him in confusion.

* * *

John was in the blue this time. He’d walked down the gray corridor to the blue window, as usual, but the dream hadn’t ended there. He stepped up to the window, reaching with long fingers toward the glass. His fingers had an almost greenish tinge, the veins underneath black and vivid against the skin. The hand passed through the window and John found himself in the blue, floating. He couldn’t tell if he was moving or not, but a light above seemed to be growing and getting brighter, the blue around him changing from a deep turquoise to a pale, sky blue.

He was moving toward something. He couldn’t feel it or see it, but he knew he was moving. The blue around him was growing brighter, almost white. A few more seconds, if he could just hold on for a few more seconds.

“Aaagggh!” John jerked awake in the infirmary, and he found himself half sitting up and slumped over the bedrails. His racing heart set off the monitor next to him, and Carson Beckett came running around the corner. The doctor pushed John back down on the bed, studying the readings.

“Easy, lad,” he cautioned.

John sucked in air, trying to calm his racing heart. He could feel himself trembling.

“Are you cold?” Carson asked.

John shook his head, but relaxed gratefully into the bed when Carson grabbed an extra blanket anyway and pulled it up around John’s shoulders. His trembling slowly quieted, as did his rapid panting and racing heartbeat.

“Nightmare?” Carson asked, watching his patient with undisguised concern.

John shook his head again, thinking back to his dream. There hadn’t been anything terrifying about it at all. Just him, floating through the blue light. Or water. He frowned, wondering if it had been water. It could have been. He could feel his eyes drooping closed. Blue water, like the pictures of the Alaskan lakes in that one book he remembered looking at long ago. Or Antartica. Deep blue water.

Like that lake on that planet.

He grabbed Carson’s wrist as the doctor moved away, halting the man’s progress. Carson looked down at him in alarm.

“I have to go back,” John whispered.

“What?”

“I have to go to that lake—that planet with the lake—where I fell in.”

Carson sighed. “Not you, too,” he mumbled.

John frowned in confusion. “I have to go back there,” he said again.

“Aye, I know. Rodney’s been clamoring to return as well.” At John’s piercing stare, Carson settled down in the seat next to him. “He found something in the body—the one you said was yourself. Some kind of computer chip, completely alien in design and materials. None of our scanners are able to detect it. I have no idea how our resident genius managed to find it in the first place, but he did. Radek and Rodney are trying to recalibrate one of the sensors to detect the material as we speak.”

“Why? What does this have to do with going back to that planet?”

“Rodney found the chip behind the left eye of the dead man. When you were pulled out of that lake, you had some damage to your left eye and lingering pain in that area. A lot of your headaches seem to start behind your left eye. That could also explain the dizziness and the nightmares. If something is messing with the nerves in your eyes, it could be throwing off the visual input being sent to your brain.”

John blinked at the doctor, trying to follow his explanation. Something was in his eye? The beeping on the heart monitor began to pick up.

“Whoa, relax,” Carson said, grasping John’s shoulder.

John forced himself to take a deep breath. He saw the blue lake in his mind again, the same blue color from the window in his dreams. “I have to go back there,” he said, struggling to rise again.

“I know, John,” Carson said, pushing John back down on the bed with ease. John frowned at him in dismay, not happy with how weak he was. Already, he was struggling to stay awake.

“You’re weak, John. You almost died. I know you have to go back to the planet—I even agree that we have to go back—but you have to give yourself a chance to heal and gain some strength back.”

“I have to go back,” he whispered again, exhausted.

“We will, lad. We will go back. I promise.”

Carson’s voice floated over him, and John relaxed, drifting quickly into sleep.

* * *

Less than a week later, John was crawling the walls, anxious to return to the planet. His team was equally pressuring Elizabeth to allow them to return, their faces filled with hope that maybe they could finally get some answers about what had happened. Elizabeth had pushed back, not willing to risk John’s life again so soon after the latest incident, but when Carson approached her with the same request—to go back to the planet with the blue lake—she finally relented.

John was stronger, though not completely back to normal. He was also suffering from headaches, which he reluctantly admitted to when Carson threatened to call the whole thing off. With a few extra pain pills, his headache had diminished to a dull throb, making him wonder why he hadn’t said anything about it in the first place.

As if he could fool Carson Beckett. That man had a sixth sense when it came to his patients. John stood in front of the gate, ready to go, and smiled widely as the doctor himself appeared in the gate room, swinging his medical bag over his shoulder and tugging on his jacket at the same time.

“Ready, doc?” John asked.

“You know I’m not, but considering what happened last time, and the state you’ve been in these past couple of months, I can’t very well send you off on your own.” Carson zipped up his jacket and stared at the active wormhole with some trepidation. “If there’s a chance we can figure out what’s been ailing you, I have to go,” he added quietly, almost to himself.

John patted Carson on the shoulder, touched at his friend’s concern and wondering what good deed he had done to deserve such friendship. Ronon, Teyla, and McKay arrived all at once, and the five of them—along with a four-man squad of Marines—set foot through the gate.

They emerged on the other side to clear blue skies. It had been months since John had last stepped through the gate onto this planet, but he remembered the small dirt path. He spoke quietly to the Marines for a few seconds, ordering them to stay behind and guard the gate, and then he headed down the trail, through the trees and the meadow with Rodney’s rocks. He wasn’t walking fast, but already he was slightly out of breath, and he cursed his own weakness.

“Don’t push yourself too hard, lad. You’re still recovering,” Carson said, falling into step beside him. John just nodded, keeping his head forward. They passed the ruins that had been giving off the strange readings so many months earlier, through the trees, until finally, they arrived at the small, hidden beach on the edge of the lake.

It was as blue as John remembered, and the same blue from his dreams. As soon as he saw it, he knew he’d come to the right place. He could feel it. He took a deep breath, wondering what they should do next.

“I’m picking up those weird energy readings again, back in the direction from where we just came. Probably from those old ruins again,” McKay announced, studying the read-out on his hand-held device.

“What now?” Carson asked, and the others looked over at John, waiting for his decision.

John shrugged. He had no idea what to do. His head was starting to throb as well. “Give me a minute to think,” he answered gruffly. As he turned away from the water, he saw a flash of light and he was standing at a different part of the beach, a few feet away. He felt himself step up to the edge of the water and peer down. A strange face with short red hair reflected back at him.

He staggered, bringing a hand up to his head, and felt someone grab a hold of his arm and gently guide him down until he was sitting on the sand. Carson kneeled in front of him, waving his pen light.

“John?”

“Sorry,” John answered. “Headache kind of spiked.”

“I don’t like this,” Rodney said, kneeling next to John’s other side. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

“No,” John choked out. He pushed away the hands trying to hold him down and rose on shaky legs. “Something happened here. I know it. This place has the answers.”

The others stood back, allowing their team leader and friend to step up to the edge of the water on his own. John stared into the blue water, his mind racing as he desperately searched its depths for an answer. The water was clear, and he could see the ripples of sand at least twenty feet out.

His headache spiked again, and he was that red-headed man standing on the edge of the lake and peering into the water. He was looking for something, something that had caught his eye. A flash of light, like metal reflecting in the sunlight, bobbed up once in the water, then sank down into its depths. The water during this time wasn’t as clear as the water John and his team were standing around. The red-headed man took a step into the water, caught sight of the round metal ball floating a few feet further out, and took another step out.

John had seen that metal ball before, in this lake. The memory of it came back to him suddenly. He remembered it moving with purpose against the currents. The red-headed man, and John with him, took another step deeper into the blue lake. The man leaned down to get a closer look, and John remembered doing the same thing.

Light and water suddenly exploded upward. John wasn’t sure if it was him or just the red-headed man’s memories, but he suddenly found himself plunging into the lak  
e.

* * *

 **Chapter 10**

Carson watched John’s back with concern. The man had hardly moved; he just kept staring out at the lake, waiting or hoping for some answer to present itself. Teyla and Ronon were watching him too, but they moved around the beach, keeping a close eye on their surroundings. Rodney sat next to Carson, studying his hand-held device, shoving it in his pocket when his mysterious energy readings would disappear only to pull it back out a few minutes later and mutter when the readings would suddenly reappear.

Carson checked his watch. They’d been here for a half an hour, maybe a little more. He knew he shouldn’t have expected the answer to jump out at them as soon as he arrived, but he had hoped, for John’s sake, that they would find something sooner rather than later. John was still weak, no matter how hard he tried to deny it, and the lines of pain around his eyes unmasked how much that headache was affecting him.

John brought a hand to his head, and Carson jumped up, intent on making him sit down for a few minutes. The man looked decidedly unsteady on his feet. He had taken no more than two steps, however, when John suddenly cried out and ran into the water. Carson froze in shock for a second at the sight of John splashing through the water in utter haste and panic—as did Ronon, Teyla, and Rodney. It wasn’t until John dived down into the water and didn’t come back up that he shook himself out of his fugue.

“Bloody hell!” He yelled, running toward the water. Ronon was two steps ahead of him and dove into the lake in pursuit of John. Carson stopped about knee deep, Teyla and Rodney splashing up behind him.

The three of them waited. It had only been seconds since Ronon had disappeared into the depths of the lake, but it felt like minutes were ticking by. Despite the clarity of the water today, they could see neither him nor John. _They must have gone deep,_ Carson thought.

Finally, Ronon’s head broke the surface of the water nearly fifty feet out. He shook the water out of his dreadlocks as he came up. Carson stepped out toward him, breathing a sigh of relief at the sound of John coughing and sputtering. Ronon swam toward shore, one arm wrapped underneath John’s torso. John’s head lolled against Ronon’s chest, but he was obviously breathing. When they were about waist deep, Carson stepped out to help Ronon carry Sheppard the rest of the way in, and they dragged his limp, shivering body onto the sand.

“John, open your eyes,” Carson commanded. John’s eyes were fluttering, and Carson tapped his cheek in an effort to wake him up. He blinked a few times, his eyelids closing slowly, opening, closing, and finally staying open. He stared up at the sky overhead.

“Colonel?” Carson said again, loudly. He rubbed his knuckles against John’s chest. John turned his head slowly to look at Carson, and the doctor smiled slightly as John’s eyes seemed to focus more solidly on his face.

“What the bloody hell were you thinking? Diving into the water in your condition…” Carson mumbled as he checked John over, relieved to find the man no worse for wear other than being soaking wet and lying in the sand.

“Found something,” John muttered.

“What?” Teyla asked, kneeling close by.

“A city or something, underwater.”

“Exactly how much of that water did you swallow, Sheppard?” Rodney griped. The scientist had his hand on Ronon’s shoulder, making sure the runner was okay.

Ronon suddenly looked up at the lake. “He’s right,” he said, sounding a little awed. “I saw it, too.”

“You found a _city_? Underwater?”

“Where do we live again, McKay?”

Rodney sputtered a second before jutting his jaw out in defiance. “Well, that’s different. That’s…that’s…that’s just different. You were down there for like three seconds chasing after Flipper the Dolphin here. How could you possibly have had time to see anything?”

“I know what I saw,” Ronon growled.

Carson ignored both of them, watching John intently. His face was pale and lined with pain, and he was shivering slightly despite the almost bath water warm temperature of the lake.

“Are you in pain, son?”

John nodded slightly, bringing a hand to his head. Teyla had gone to grab his medical bag, which she now deposited next to him. He fished through it, pulled out a syringe, and jabbed his patient in the shoulder before the man could say anything.

“What was that?” John asked. His eyes had flown open at the sharp needle prick in his arm.

“Painkiller, for your headache,” Carson answered. He held up a hand as John glared at him, stopping any retort John might have made. “It won’t make you drowsy. It will just take the edge off a bit.”

John relaxed at that, but the moment was short lived. Next to them, Ronon suddenly flew up to his feet, half knocking McKay over.

“Something’s coming,” he announced, fingering his weapon. Carson turned toward the lake and saw a stream of bubbles and ripples heading toward the shore. Something—or _someone—_ was coming up from the city. John struggled to sit up next to him, accomplishing this only after Teyla put her hand on his back and steadied him.

“Don’t kill him,” John said, his voice sounding stronger than Carson expected. John was looking directly at Ronon as he spoke. “If he has answers…”

“Set to stun,” Ronon answered, showing Sheppard his gun.

They waited with some trepidation. When the disturbance was about fifteen feet offshore, a type of bubble broke the surface of the water, and a man appeared. He floated the final few steps to the sand on some kind of round, black disc, and then the bubble surrounding him popped and he stepped onto land completely dry.

Carson stared at the man in shock and a little bit of fear, wondering what his intentions were. He wasn’t human, but he was humanoid. He was tall, at least seven feet high, and thin. His skin had a greenish translucent tinge to it, and his veins stood out in stark contrast. They were almost black. His eyes were round and larger than normal for a human, and his hair…It wasn’t really hair. It looked more like thin tendrils of skin, growing long and shaggy around his face and the same color as the skin on his hands and arms. He was dressed simply in brown pants and a long white shirt.

John squirmed, grabbing onto Carson’s shoulder as he attempted to stand up. Between the doctor and Teyla, they managed to pull John to his feet and keep him steady when he swayed at the sudden change in position.

“You,” John said.

The being looked at John, nodding his head and closing its eyes in some kind of greeting or acknowledgment.

“I know you. I’ve seen you, in the gray corridor. At the window.”

“Yes,” the being replied. “I am Ankera.”

“What did you do to me?”

“You are my explorer,” Ankera answered.

“I don’t understand. What does that mean?” John had let go of Carson and Teyla to stand by himself, and he wrapped his arms around his chest, still shivering. Carson and Teyla, however, refused to release their grip on John.

“I will explain all to you in time. What has happened was not meant to be.”

“You’ll explain now,” Ronon growled, stepping forward and raising his weapon. Ankera glanced at Ronon, letting his impassive façade slip for a moment and nervously eyeing the gun know pointed at his face.

“You have been sick for many days,” Ankera answered after a moment and turning to look at John again. “I have attempted to corrected it, but so far, have been unsuccessful, and in the process, caused you more harm. I can correct what has been done to you, but you must come with me. _Now._ ” Ankera glanced around. It suddenly occurred to Carson that the being was nervous, though not necessarily because of Ronon. Although he was sure the runner’s almost palpable ire wasn’t helping.

Before anyone could respond, John spoke up. “Okay, I’ll go. But only if you undo whatever it is you did in the first place.”

“John!” Teyla cried.

“I have to do this. I can’t live the rest of my life thinking I’m going to collapse or go into seizures without any warning,” John answered tightly. “I’ll lose everything. Atlantis, my command, all of it—all of you.” He looked at the rest of his teammates and Carson, daring them to try and stop him from going back to the underwater city.

“Fine, Sheppard, but I’m coming with you,” Ronon finally said.

“As am I,” Carson spoke up. His stomach twisted in fear at what he was volunteering to do, but he forced confidence and a small measure of determination into his voice.

“I do not know if that will be possible,” Ankera stuttered, his eyes widening in surprise.

“We will all go,” Teyla spoke up, taking a step toward the being. “You have already admitted that you are responsible for John’s condition. You cannot expect us to trust you alone with him.” Teyla was speaking in her most diplomatic voice, but there was a hard edge behind the words. Everyone nodded, and Carson thought John looked relieved that his friends would back him up on this.

“I agree,” Ankera finally conceded.

John groaned suddenly, stumbling forward and almost falling. He managed to catch himself with his hands on his knees, but his eyes were closed tightly and he was breathing hard. Carson leapt forward, his hands on John’s back and arm as he tried to keep him from collapsing.

“We must go,” Ankera said. “I can restore what once was, but time runs short. If you do not return with me now, your friend will die."

* * *

 **Chapter 11**

John was only peripherally aware of what was happening around him. His head was throbbing, and his vision kept going in and out of focus. He’d recognized Ankera—at least, he’d recognized the greenish skin with the black veins. Ankera’s open admission that he was responsible for everything that had happened to John since the last time he’d stepped onto the planet had given John a burst of energy at the sudden surge of rage. He’d stepped forward, toward the alien being, only to almost collapse. He was shaking like mad, and the world tilted around him like a spinning top. Someone had grabbed him—Carson—preventing him from falling over completely.

“We must go,” Ankera had said. “I can restore what once was, but time runs short. If you do not return with me now, your friend will die.”

His team and Carson had stood by him, and despite Ankera’s obvious wariness, they’d all piled onto the metal disc, which had expanded to hold them all. John had closed his eyes when the disc started to move, and Carson’s grip on his arm had tightened. A few seconds later, a bubble had formed around them and they’d sunk slowly into the water.

John opened his eyes, feeling like he was in one of his dreams again. The blue around them was bright. Unlike the dream, it was obvious they were in water. John, momentarily forgetting his pain and dizziness, stared in wonder at the small particles floating in the water as they passed. In the distance, he thought he saw a school of fish darting around. Below them, a large city appeared.

They approached it rapidly, but it still took them awhile to reach it. The lake was much deeper than it seemed to be from the surface. The others gazed around them in wonder.

“This is amazing,” Rodney said.

Ankera nodded his head, his large eyes watching the group of humans closely. His skin had taken on more of a bluish-green tinge.

“Does the city rise to the surface of the lake?” Rodney asked, turning his attention to the alien standing next to him. John smiled at the excitement in the scientist’s face, before wincing at the pain in his head.

“Why would the city do that?” Ankera asked, clearly confused.

“I don’t know. For the fresh air.”

“To be on the surface would leave us vulnerable to our enemies.”

“The Wraith,” Teyla said.

“Yes. Long have my people been hunted by the Wraith. We built our city in secret at the bottom of the deepest water.”

“The Wraith have never found it?” Rodney asked, vying for Ankera’s attention.

“They have not,” he replied. “We have created devices that emit random energy signatures and placed them around our planet. The Wraith have investigated them many times, but they grow frustrated and eventually leave without finding our city.”

“That would explain the energy readings that kept disappearing on me.”

“Yes,” Ankera answered. “They are meant to confuse.” The group traveled in silence for a few more minutes, and John focused on breathing through the throbbing spikes in his head. He looked up to see Carson watching him intently. He smiled at him, but it came out more as a grimace.

“We are here.” The disc slowed its approach as it came up along the side of a smooth, gray outer wall. At the last second, a doorway appeared and the disc, holding its small group, passed seamlessly out of the water and into the city.

The bubble protecting them from the water dissipated and John staggered at the sudden cessation of movement. Carson, still holding on to him, managed to keep him from falling flat on his face, but John’s legs buckled and the doctor lowered him gently to the ground.

“John?” He asked, pressing the back of his hand against John’s forehead.

“S…’rry,” John said, breathing heavily. “…dizzy…”

“We must move quickly,” Ankera stated. He glanced up and down the hallway nervously.

“For him or for you?” Ronon asked.

John tried to listen to the answer. He had brought his team into an alien environment and he needed to be on top of his game. Carson was checking his pulse and making faint noises of disapproval.

“It does not matter,” Teyla said. “John needs help.”

John felt hands on his arms pulling him up. It took him a moment to get his feet moving under him. The world spun wildly around him and he groaned. As he began moving down the hall, he leaned heavily on the two people on each side of him—Carson and Rodney.

“Hold on, son,” Carson murmured.

“I know this place,” John said, glancing around.

“It’s the gray hallway, isn’t it?” Rodney answered, panting slightly as he shifted to support more of John’s weight. John felt his arm wrap around his waist as the scientist took on even more weight. They were moving quickly down the gray corridor with the smooth metal walls, and John was having trouble keeping up the rapid pace. He stumbled, and felt his friends’ grip tighten around him.

“How much farther?” Carson asked.

Rather than answer, Ankera moved in front of them leading the way. He was quick and agile, and the small group quickened their pace.

Ankera turned the corner, stopping in front of a door barely visible in the hallway. They stepped into a small room that sealed shut. John’s legs were shaking and he was breathing hard. He blinked his eyes as his vision blurred. He forced himself to focus on staying conscious but knew he was rapidly losing the battle.

The door opened, and in the back of his mind, John realized they had stepped into some kind of transporter similar to what Atlantis had. Ankera led the way again and they were soon rushing down another hallway. John groaned as his legs gave out completely, and Carson and Rodney dragged him through another doorway. He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt himself being lowered onto a soft surface, and he sank into darkness.

* * *

Teyla watched Carson and Rodney drag John over to the bed in the center of the room. They had entered some kind of medical lab, and by the way Ankera was moving around the room, it was his lab.

Her stomach clenched in fear at the worry on Carson’s face as he bent over the unconscious colonel.

“His temp’s up, and his pulse. He’s on the verge of hyperventilating.”

“Help him,” Ronon snarled.

Ankera jumped. “Yes, yes. I will prepare everything now.” He moved around the lab quickly, setting up alien-looking equipment that Teyla couldn’t even begin to guess at their function.

“What did you do to him?” Rodney asked.

“He is my explorer.”

“You said that before,” Ronon interrupted. “What does that mean?”

Ankera hesitated, and Teyla caught a glimpse of the inner battle flash across his alien features. “The Wraith hunted us, as they hunt all others, almost to extinction,” he began. “We were driven deep underwater. We hid, out of survival, but some still yearned for news of the worlds we once traveled to. The stories of their existence have been passed down for generations.”

Ankera walked to one end of the room, and all but Carson and the unconscious John followed him. The alien opened up a wide cupboard, revealing a series of computer screens. “I did not develop the technology, but I have perfected it. It is forbidden by our laws to leave the city except at certain times of the day. We believe the Wraith no longer know of our existence. If we were to leave the city and be discovered by the Wraith, it would bring their wrath upon us all. Our people would be destroyed forever.”

“So, what’s all this?” Rodney asked, peering at the dark screens.

“I yearn for the outside world,” Ankera whispered. He stared at the screens as if he could see the images they once held and reached out with a thin green finger. A moment later, he held up a small, silver orb in his hand. “This is my masterpiece,” he said. “From my lab here, I am able to send it up to the surface of the water. There is very little energy, undetectable by the Wraith or any others.”

Ankera paused again.

“What are you saying?” Teyla pressed.

“Few travelers come to our planet, but when they do, they are often attracted to the stunning beauty of our lake. For those who venture too close to the water, or in the water itself, I use this to insert a small piece of technology in the eye.” Ankera held up the small metal orb again. “From there, I am able to direct visual stimulus to these screens.”

“You can see what they see,” Rodney suddenly exclaimed.

“They are my explorers,” Ankera said.

“You used Sheppard,” Ronon yelled, advancing on Ankera. The alien cowered before the angry runner, his wide eyes opening even wider. He backed up toward the wall, his face twitching in fear.

“You used him. You used all of them. The people Sheppard saw in his dreams, they were all your explorers as well, weren’t they?”

Ankera, though terrified, maintained eye contact with Ronon. “Something went wrong with your Sheppard. It was not supposed to hurt. He should never have known. I tried to reverse the effects several times from my lab, but it only caused him more harm. I could not correct the error.”

“Something did go wrong.” Ronon raised his gun, holding it just inches from the alien’s face. Teyla stepped forward, intending to stop him from hurting Ankera, but Carson’s voice froze them all.

“Ronon, stop. John needs his help. Now.”

Teyla spun around. Carson was standing at John’s side with a look of fear and helplessness on his face. John was gasping on the bed, his skin ashen and damp with sweat. He writhed on the bed in pain, moaning and whimpering. Carson looked up at Ankera.

“Whatever you’re planning to do, you need to do it now.”

Ankera nodded, and moved lithely around Ronon. The runner dropped his gun, but he continued to glare at the alien. “We must remove the technology in his eye. I can do it with little risk to his health or eyesight, but I will need some assistance.”

“I’m his doctor,” Carson stated. “I’ll help.”

“Very well. The rest of you will need to leave.” Ankera pointed to a door in the corner of the lab, and as he did so, it slid open, revealing a small sitting room.

“I’m not leaving you alone with him,” Ronon growled.

“Ronon, please,” Teyla begged. Despite what Ankera had done to John, she sensed his sincerity in helping him. She could understand the conflict between fearing the Wraith but not wanting to live in fear as well.

“I will help your friend. I promise. I have never meant anyone any harm.”

Teyla grabbed Ronon’s arm, guiding him toward the sitting room. Rodney followed suit, looking equally irate and terrified. With a deep breath, she took one last look at John before closing the door and leaving the life of her friend in Ankera’s hands.

* * *

John opened his eyes gradually, his body aching but muted. The dull throb in his head was distant and he wondered what kinds of drugs Carson had given him this time. He stared at the gray ceiling, belatedly realizing he was not on Atlantis. His heart started to slam in his chest. _Where was he? What had happened?_ He tried to lift his head to look around, but he felt heavy and uncoordinated. One of his eyes refused to open. _This has happened before._ He felt the heavy weight of bandages once again covering his left eye.

“So you’re little science project not only sent images from Sheppard’s brain to your computer, but it also sent stored data from your other ‘explorers’ to his head?”

The sound of Rodney’s voice had an unexpected calming effect on John, and he relaxed back into the bed. He hadn’t followed anything the man had said, but the fact that he just sounded pissed and not terrified or panicked meant they couldn’t be in too much trouble. He tried to turn his head toward McKay’s voice, but he was exhausted. He closed his eye.

“As I have explained, there was an error in the technology. I attempted to correct it a number of times by sending signals from my computer to the technology in your friend, but it did not work.”

John wondered at that voice. It sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. He supposed he could look over—they didn’t sound like they were that far away—but for the moment, he was content to just lay there listlessly.

“That’s one way of putting,” Carson ’s voice, also sounding pissed but with a measure of forced calm overriding his instinct to snap at the owner of the unidentified voice. “Every time you tried to correct the problem, you practically caused the man grand mal seizures. You could have permanently damaged his brain had you kept trying to fix this.”

 _Brain?_ That sounded serious. It suddenly occurred to John that they were talking about him and that he should be feeling a little more worried that he was. He took a deep breath, then decided he was too tired.

“It’s a good thing we came back here then,” Ronon’s voice, also angry. Or maybe just normal. John wasn’t sure. Ronon, Rodney, Carson …where was Teyla?

“I apologize again. I meant your friend no harm. I assure you he has been made whole again.”

Oh, right. The city. The underwater city. John opened his eye and looked up again at the gray ceiling, remembering his dream of the gray corridor and his team’s trip through the hallways to the medical lab. Ankera, with the green skin and black veins. What was the other thing he had said? He was whole again?

“So, how many ‘explorers’ have you had before Sheppard?” Rodney’s voice again, curious now and not quite as angry.

“A very many. I have all of their files saved here.”

“Can we watch some of them?”

There was a pause, and John wondered if he should look around to see what they were doing. He turned his head and blinked, seeing his team and Carson standing at the far end of the lab in front of a bank of computer screens. Ankera stood nearby, bending over some kind of keyboard. The screen suddenly lit up and filled with images.

“This is from the last explorer, before your friend Sheppard. I believe you have visited this place,” Ankera said, expanding one of the images to fill the whole wall of screens.

With a start, John recognized the village nestled on the side of the mountain. He sat up, ignoring the growing, throbbing intensity of pain in his left eye. The others, their focus intent on the screen in front of them, didn’t notice that he was awake. John watched in horror as the man on the screen stood up from digging in his farm field and wiped his sleeve across his forehead. There was no sound, but John could hear in his mind the shouts of a little boy running down the middle of the road toward his father. The image jumped to the boy waving his arms, his smile bright and happy, his whole future seemingly in front of him.

John’s stomach churned. Seeing this in his head was bad enough, but seeing it on a screen, having it witnessed by others, gave it an air of reality or permanence he wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with. He leaned forward pressing his arm into his stomach as if to calm the rising nausea. Ankera jumped around in the file, showing different images from the man’s life until he arrived at the day of the culling.

John tried to turn away or close the one eye not covered in bandages—he wanted to—but he couldn’t force himself. The rest of his team was equally intent on the destruction taking place in front of them. John saw the homes burning and the white hair of the Wraith glinting in the sunlight as they moved through the village in pursuit of their prey. The man on the screen was suddenly running toward the village and John’s breath caught in his throat. The man was thrown to the ground, and a Wraith stood over him sneering.

“No!” John voice erupted like a choked cry as the Wraith’s hand slammed into the man on the screen’s chest. The others, including Ankera, spun around, and Carson immediately ran over to him. John could feel the doctor’s hands on him forcing him to lie down. People were yelling in the distance and the screens on the wall suddenly darkened, but John could not hear anything over the buzzing in his head.

He couldn’t breathe, and his body suddenly bucked as he lost his grip on the battle against nausea. Someone turned him onto his side as he threw up. They held him while wave after wave of retching and heaving wracked through him. After what felt like hours, his stomach finally quieted down and he was rolled over onto his back again.

Carson and Teyla appeared above him, with Ronon and Rodney not too far behind them. John was shaking and breathing like he’d just sprinted across the east pier. He felt completely wrung out. Someone—Teyla, maybe—draped a blanket over him. Carson was talking to him, and he turned his head to focus on the doctor’s voice.

“Easy, son, you’ll be alright.” Carson ’s voice was low as he repeated the soothing mantra, his hand lightly rubbing John’s stomach in an attempt to relax the sick man. “Slow, deep breaths, lad,” he said.

John struggled to get his breathing under control, and after another minutes or so felt himself beginning to relax. He’d closed his eye again, and when he blinked it open again, Carson was the only one leaning over him.

“What happened?” John asked, his voice sounding weak and hoarse.

Carson reached for something out of sight, then returned holding one of their canteens. He helped John sit up and take a sip before answering the question. “We were able to remove the computer chip implanted into your optical nerve. Ankera assures us you’re fine now, and even though I’d still like to run my own tests, everything seems to be back to normal.”

John nodded. Normal . He needed normal. “We’re still in the underwater city?”

“Aye. We didn’t want to move you right away. Ankera insisted we waited at least until you woke up from the sedative and painkiller he administered.”

John nodded, barely following Carson ’s explanation. He was so tired.

“He’s awake now,” Ronon said from somewhere off to John’s left. “Let’s go.”

Ankera suddenly appeared over John, holding some kind of device. John lay still, watching the alien with a mixture of curiosity and fear. He wondered why he wasn’t angry at the being, but as soon as that thought occurred to him, he decided he was angry. Then he was just tired and didn’t care. _I am so messed up right now_ , he thought to himself idly.

Whatever Ankera was holding seemed to be some kind of medical device. He handed it to Carson where the doctor looked over the results and nodded his head in relief.

“There appears to be no complications,” Ankera said, speaking to the group.

“So we may leave?” Teyla asked with a little trepidation.

“No,” Ankera answered.

* * *

 **Chapter 12**

“So we may leave?” Teyla asked with a little trepidation.

“No,” Ankera answered.

The room erupted in angry shouts. John caught a glimpse of Ronon stalking toward Ankera, his eyes flashing. Teyla was also moving toward the alien. He couldn’t see Rodney, but the physicist’s irate voice rang out as loudly as everyone else’s.

John groaned. The pain in his eye was spreading out into the rest of his head and shooting down his neck. The nausea returned with a vengeance and threatened to join the chorus of protests the rest of his body was making. He was shaking again, so he closed the eye not covered in bandages, trying to focus on getting himself under control.

He must have drifted off. When he opened his eye again, he was in a different room, laying on a soft, wide bed. The light was different in this room, a pale blue that diffused around him. He turned his head toward a soft murmur of voices and saw Ronon and Teyla sitting at a small table in front of a large blue window.

“We’re in an aquarium,” he mumbled. His throat was dry, though, and he began coughing.

Teyla and Ronon looked up at him instantly, and Teyla smiled when she realized he was awake. She approached him quietly, helping him to sit up a little to drink some water. John leaned back against the pillows, noting that the pain in his head and eye had all but disappeared. It was a distant ache now, and it felt wonderful.

“What’s going on?” He whispered.

“Ankera has brought us to his home and insisted that we stay here for a few more hours. He said his people are only allowed to leave the confines of the city at certain times of the day.”

There was something in her voice, a hint of skepticism. John studied her a moment. “You don’t believe him?”

“I think it’s strange we haven’t seen anyone else in this whole city,” Ronon answered.

John looked from Teyla to Ronon, waiting for them to continue.

“I agree,” Teyla said. “If Ankera’s people really are so terrified of being discovered by the Wraith, I do not think they would be pleased to find out we have been brought here and told of the existence of their refuge.”

John nodded. It made sense. “But Ankera will let us go, supposedly at some point when we won’t be caught?”

Ronon grunted, but Teyla nodded her head. “Yes, John,” she said. “I believe Ankera sincerely does not wish us harm. He is a scientist, driven by curiosity, but not without heart.”

John relaxed at that. He knew Teyla to be a good judge of character; he’d depended on that judgment in the past and was alive many times over because of it. Her explanation made sense, too. Ankera’s people would no doubt defend their city as fiercely as he would defend Atlantis.

“Atlantis.” John suddenly sat up in bed, turning in a panic to Teyla and Ronon. “Ankera knows about Atlantis. Everything I’ve seen and done there, he’s seen and has a record of.”

A movement off to his left startled him, and John turned around to see Rodney sitting up in a chair and stretching his back. He rubbed his eyes, obviously just waking up. Behind him, Carson lay sprawled and snoring on a long sofa.

“Hello, genius here,” he mumbled. “When Ronon here was threatening to kill Ankera, I took the opportunity to wipe out all records, files, and documentation related to your ‘explorations.’ Ankera may know about Atlantis, but he’ll never be able to prove it to anyone.”

John looked at the scientist in surprise. A slow smile crept over his face. “McKay, I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, well, don’t ever accuse me of being incapable of thinking on my feet in a dire situation again,” he grumbled.

John grinned. “You got all the records, then? Even back-ups?”

“Did I not just say I’m a genius? The whole city is connected to some kind of centralized database. I wiped the records off Ankera’s computer and off the centralized database. We’re in the clear.”

“Did he say how long we’d have to wait?”

“He did not,” Teyla answered.

“Well, let’s be ready to go as soon as he comes back.” John sat up, pulling the covers off of him and swinging his legs around to the side. He gripped the edge of the mattress as the world tilted, but the dizziness passed quickly. Ronon dropped his boots, jacket, and vest on the bed next to him. “And let’s be ready in case he doesn’t come back soon enough,” John added, with Ronon nodding his approval.

A few hours later, they were still waiting. Carson had woken up and fussed over John. Teyla and Rodney had dozed off in the chairs. Ronon refused to relax, keeping watch over all of them. John was equally as anxious as Ronon, but his body betrayed him, and he was soon dozing on the bed he’d woken up on. The light from the blue window did not change or indicate the passage of time in anyway.

When Ankera finally burst into the room, he took everyone by surprised. Ronon spun toward the door, raising his weapon. Teyla and Rodney flew out to their chairs. John jerked awake, sitting straight up in the bed then slumping over to the side as he was hit with a wave of dizziness. Carson had been the only one other than Ronon awake for Ankera’s entrance, sitting quietly and watching over his patient. He grabbed John’s arm, steadying him and keeping the pilot from falling over.

“I apologize for my abrupt entrance,” Ankera announced, slightly out of breath. “It is time to leave.”

“Finally,” Ronon growled. The others stood up, relieved to be going and anxious to return home. John grabbed Carson’s shoulder as he stood, taking a minute to get his feet under him before stepping forward.

The group moved out into the hallway. John watched Ankera’s back, noting that the alien seemed to be tense, although for all he knew, that could be his normal posture. Ankera turned his head back and forth down the hallways, his eyes wide. John wondered if he was searching for any signs of life. The hallways were empty.

“We are almost there,” Ankera whispered.

John breathed a sigh of relief a second too soon. As they rounded the corner, they were suddenly confronted with a group of aliens, similar in look to Ankera. Their alien stopped abruptly with a gasp. Ronon was already moving to one side of the corridor and pulling his weapon. Instinct took over despite the fact that half his head was swathed in bandages, and John moved to the other side of the hallway, his hand automatically dropping toward his thigh holster.

A sound behind them had the group spinning in that direction, and they found themselves suddenly surrounded. The aliens facing them on all sides were all wearing some kind of uniform, and John wondered if they were soldiers or law enforcement personnel.

“Wait…” Ankera whimpered. “Please…”

Ronon hesitated for less than a second before firing into the group in front of them. Their reaction was instantaneous and smooth, reflecting their extensive training. One of the aliens dropped as Ronon hit him with his stunner, but the others quickly converged on the large man. The aliens were tall and thin and deceptively strong, and John watched in horror as the runner was quickly knocked unconscious. He stepped toward him, thinking for a split second that he could salvage the situation somehow—that they could still escape. He had just enough time to see one of the alien’s swinging his arm at him, and then his head exploded in pain.

* * *

John woke up to another gray ceiling. His head was throbbing again, and he wondered if waking up in Ankera’s home and their failed escape attempt had all been a dream. This time there was no soft bed underneath him. He felt like he was lying on the floor. He turned his head and saw that he was lying on some kind of bench made of the same smooth, hard metal as the walls.

Teyla suddenly bent over him, and he realized his head was in her lap. She moved his hair back and brought a white cloth toward his face. As she gently pressed it into the left side of his head, he grimaced at the spike of pain it caused. She pulled the cloth away, and he saw that it was now covered in spots of blood.

“Lie still, John. You have been injured.” She spoke quietly, but a firm hand on his chest kept him from rising.

“Of course I’ve been injured,” he sighed. “I hate my life.” At Teyla’s raised eyebrows, he shook his head, immediately regretting the movement as the throbbing in his temples intensified. A minute later, the pain had lessened enough for him to focus back on Teyla’s anxious face. He waved a hand at her, trying to brush of any questions about his well-being, and asked a question of his own.

“So, we’re still in the city?”

“They’re giving us the grand tour—medical labs, spacious quarters, and now, jail,” Rodney said, stalking back and forth in front of a barred door John was just now noticing. John suddenly remembered Ronon going down in the fight and he tried to lift his head. Teyla quickly pushed it back down.

“Ronon?” John asked.

“I’m here,” the man in question answered. “I’m fine.”

“Ha, fine indeed. You’re nuts, the whole lot of you,” Carson said, waving his arms and looking a little freaked out. He moved over to squat next to John, lifting the bloody bandage covering his eye and poking and prodding the eye itself until John cried out.

“One of them buggers hit you pretty hard on the left side of your head, causing your eye to bleed. That’s got me a wee bit worried, I’ll not lie to you.”

“How’s Ronon, doc?” John asked. He didn’t want to think about his eye and the possibility that it could be damaged, maybe permanently. There was only so much hitting it could take, and John had surpassed his quota on his first trip to this planet.

“A mild concussion, at least. I’d wager you’re suffering from a throbbing headache as well,” he answered, placing the bandage back over the injury and securing it tightly.

There was no use denying it—Carson would see right through that—so John nodded in acknowledgment.

“They took my medical bag, otherwise I’d give you something to take the edge off. Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” John answered. He pushed against the bench, and despite the hands trying to hold him down, he managed to sit up. He had intended to stand up, but even the change in altitude from lying to sitting was almost too much, and he scooted deeper onto the bench and leaned his head against the wall. From his new position, he could see Ronon sitting on the floor with his legs pulled up and his head buried in the arms folded across his knees.

“What’s our situation?” He asked, looking around at the others.

“Our situation? Well, let’s see. You’re bleeding, Ronon has a concussion, we’re in jail in an underwater city, and they’ve taken away all of our supplies, radios, and weapons.” Rodney ranted, waving his arms back and forth like he was conducting a symphony.

John looked at Teyla to confirm. She looked like she was about to disagree, or at least put a more positive spin on things, but in the end, she just shrugged and nodded in agreement. Rodney had, for once, summed up their situation concisely.

Ankera suddenly appeared at the door. John was about to demand some answers from the alien, when the door slid open and he was shoved into the cell with the rest of them. A soldier behind him slammed the door shut just as quickly and locked it with a resounding clang before disappearing from view.

“Ankera, what is happening?” Teyla asked him.

The alien was shaking and he lowered himself carefully to the floor against the opposite wall. “I apologize—” he started.

“You do that an awful lot,” John drawled. Ankera paused, sucking in a deep breath. His face twitched and jerked as he looked at each of his fellow prisoners in turn. John thought his skin looked different, too—more of a pale, bluish green than the translucent green of earlier.

“Why are we in jail?” Rodney asked, standing over the alien with his hands on his hips.

“I have broken our most sacred law, and in so doing, jeopardized the safety of the entire city.”

“By bringing us here,” Teyla said, confirming her earlier theory.

Ankera nodded. “Yes. By revealing the existence of our city, it is believed that, through you, the Wraith would eventually find us and finish the destruction they once began.”

“You must know we wouldn’t give you up to the Wraith. They are as much our enemy as yours,” Carson objected.

“I do know this, and I believe you would not do anything to harm my people or our city, but there are others who are not so understanding.” Ankera took a deep breath, pressing his long bony fingers into his chest in some odd mannerism. “You must understand. My people are ruled by their fear. Mostly, it is a fear of the Wraith, but by extension that fear encompasses all outside worlds and what contact with others might bring upon us. A few of us are driven by what we are not allowed to experience for ourselves, living our lives through the lives of our explorers. Our research is tolerated, but not accepted, and even now, there are those working to ban the technology completely. I fear that my actions, while motivated to undo the damage I caused you, will give them the final ‘evidence’ they need to complete their task and make my life’s work illegal.”

“Sorry if I don’t feel very sympathetic to your plight, since right at this moment, I’m in _jail._ ” Rodney continued to stand over Ankera.

“What will they do now? To us?” John asked.

Ankera finally looked up at him, his eyes sad. “I have been charged with treason and you have been charged with the attempted destruction of our people. We will be executed in the morning.”

* * *

 **Chapter 13**

Ankera’s announcement regarding their executions had caused the expected outburst from everyone. Rodney had ranted and raved, punctuating his words with a few obscene hand gestures. Ronon had staggered to his feet, no doubt to throttle Ankera, but had been dropped to his knees by a wave of dizziness. Carson, seeing Ronon’s sudden rise to his feet had jumped up to stop the man’s murderous advance but ended up catching him as he fell over. John had tried to stand up as well and was equally swept off his feet by a wave of dizziness. The pain in his eye began throbbing and the next thing he knew he was laying back on the bench with Teyla looking down at him. She disappeared and Ankera was suddenly leaning over him. Carson hovered not too far behind him. The alien probed and poked around the bandages a moment then nodded at Beckett.

“I cannot say for certain, but I do not believe he has suffered any permanent damage,” Ankera said. He backed away from Sheppard as he spoke, his eyes darting from Beckett to Teyla to Ronon. He jerked as he almost ran into Rodney behind him, and Sheppard would have laughed at the alien’s almost comic reaction had they not been awaiting imminent death. Ankera eventually huddled into the farthest corner of the cell possible.

Ronon settled back against the wall, leaning his head back. Rodney paced a few more times, and then dropped to the ground next to Ronon. Teyla moved behind Sheppard, sliding under him so she could cradle his head again in her lap. Beckett perched on the edge of the bench near John’s feet, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

That had been hours ago. Since Ankera had joined them in their cell, they hadn’t seen or heard from another alien. John lay there, exhausted and on the verge of falling asleep again.

“If we weren’t about to die, I’d almost feel sorry for you,” Rodney said, breaking the silence that had settled over all of them. John turned his head to see the scientist peering at Ankera with intensity.

Ankera looked up, his eyes wide. “Why is that?”

“You’re life is pretty sad if you think about it. All of your experiences are someone else’s—your explorers. Didn’t you ever try to live your own life, create your own, real experiences?”

Ankera stared at McKay for a moment before turning away from him. His face twitched and the long fingers of his hands pressed into his chest. John wondered if he was angry, or nervous, despondent or indifferent at the physicist’s words.

“He’s right,” Ronon added. “If you’re so interested in life outside of this city, why didn’t you just leave? Why didn’t you do your own exploring?”

“I could not. It is forbidden. I would have been killed.”

“Only if you came back. And, may I remind you, you’re about to be killed anyway. We all are, thanks to you.”

John nodded, agreeing with McKay, but not without a little sympathy for Ankera. He wondered what he would have done in a similar situation. If he was confined to Atlantis, could he leave his city, knowing he would never be allowed to leave? He wasn’t so sure about that. No matter how anxious or bored he got when he was recovering from illness or injury, or just waiting for the next mission, he would not willingly abandon Atlantis forever. Add to that the feeling that the safety of the city and everyone in it—whether founded or not—was dependant on him staying in it, and the answer was simple. He would never jeopardize Atlantis.

They sat there in silence for awhile longer, each lost in their own thoughts. Again, Rodney broke the silence, but his thoughts had obviously drifted along a different line from John’s. “You used the technology on yourself, didn’t you?”

“Excuse me?” Ankera asked. The others turned to McKay, wondering what he was talking about now.

“Sheppard’s dream about the gray corridor. That was your eyes he was seeing through, wasn’t it?”

John looked at Ankera, suddenly interested in the answer.

“Yes,” Ankera said. “When I perfected the technology, I tested it on myself to ensure it would not be harmful.”

“And?” John asked.

“It was not harmful—either to me or to any of the other human explorers afterward. You are the first that it has not worked on. I do not understand why. With more tests, perhaps I could offer you an explanation. I had assumed humans were similar enough from world to world that my technology would react the same in all of them. That had proven itself out in all subjects before yourself. Perhaps you are different than the other humans…” Ankera’s voice trailed off.

At that moment, a guard appeared at the door. Ronon, Rodney, and Ankera stood up.

“Ankera, as is our custom, you have been granted access to a sanctuary to make the final preparations before your death.” The guard opened the door, keeping a careful eye on the others in the cell. Ankera nodded his head in acknowledgement and left the cell.

“What about us?” Rodney yelled as the door slid shut. “What about our final preparations?”

“We are unfamiliar with your customs,” the guard replied and left.

“Well, that’s just great. Thanks for your cultural understanding and all that crap. Is it safe to assume that our end is near?” Rodney yelled, pressing his head against the bars. Silence was his only answer.

“You know, you’d think they would at least try and talk to us given the fact that they’re about to kill us,” he griped. He slid down the wall in defeat and slumped next to Ronon.

“Sorry, guys,” John said.

“Why are you sorry?” Carson asked, looking down at him with some concern.

“My fault we had to come down here.”

“Yes, yes, Sheppard. It’s all your fault we’re about to die. I’ll hate you forever in the afterlife—stop looking at me like that.” Rodney glared at Ronon and moved to the spot across the cell where Ankera had been sitting. “It’s a pointless conversation anyway.”

“Lovely,” Carson muttered. He grabbed John’s wrist, feeling for a pulse, and tutted at what he found.

“I’m just saying, we’re locked up in a cell and about to be executed. No one even knows we’re here, so no chance for a last minute miracle rescue.” At Ronon’s continued glare, Rodney threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. For the record, Sheppard, this is not your fault. No one blames you—not even me—so stop trying to stock even more skeletons into your closet.”

“Actually—” Sheppard began, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

“No, Sheppard. You are not allowed to take the blame for this. This is not your fault.” Rodney pounded the floor, punctuating every word.

John shook his head and opened his mouth, about to respond, when they heard a sound from outside. Ronon and Teyla stood up, their stances wide, and John saw Ronon flick his wrist as he palmed a small knife that had appeared out of nowhere.

They heard the footsteps coming toward them, but it sounded like someone was running. John frowned, wondering what the rush could be after they’d been sitting there for hours on end. His thoughts flitted momentarily to the last minute miracle rescue McKay had lost hope in, but then Ankera suddenly appeared in front of their door.

“We do not have much time,” he said, breathing hard through his nose. He glanced down the hallway he had just run down, then pulled out a key from his pocket. His hair trembled and his hand shook as he nervously tried to get the door open. The door finally slid away, and Ankera stepped back. “I will help you escape, but you must hurry.”

When no one moved, Ankera waved his arms in impatience. “I mean you no harm. Please, you must believe me. I will help you return to the surface, but we must leave now before they realize I am not in the sanctuary.”

John was the first to move, helped to his feet by Rodney and Carson. They held onto him as he got his feet under him, then John nodded and stepped forward. The others followed suit. Teyla took the lead, following Ankera, and Ronon brought up the rear. Carson hovered close to John, but the pilot managed to stay on his own two feet.

John walked as fast as he could. His head was throbbing, but he pushed the pain to the back of his mind and tried to focus on escaping. According to Ankera, he would be fine, and the thought of returning to home and to normalcy propelled him forward, fueling his energy reserves.

They moved down to two separate hallways when the first sound of an alarm went off. Ankera spun around nervously, looking for the guards that were sure to be on their tail.

“This way,” he said. He opened a small hatch on the side of the corridor that meshed almost invisibly with the wall. Behind it lay narrow ladder. After explaining how to close the hatch behind them, Ankera ducked into the small passageway and began climbing down.

“Colonel, will you be alright with this?” Carson whispered.

John peered down he ladder at Ankera’s disappearing head. His depth perception was a little skewed with one eye covered. He swallowed tightly. “Don’t have much choice,” he answered. At Carson’s persistent glare, he shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll be okay. I can do this.”

With that, he stepped into the hatchway and began climbing down the ladder. He could hear Carson following him, but he was feeling a little lightheaded and kept his eye focused on each rung and each step. His legs were feeling a little shaky, and he tightened his grip on the ladder. A distant noise above him signaled the pursuing guards were getting closer, and the ensuing surge of adrenaline gave John the extra energy boost he needed to reach the bottom. As he reached the ground, his legs buckled slightly, and Ankera was suddenly in front of him, wrapping his long arm around John’s waist.

“I’m good. I’m okay now,” John said, holding onto the alien for a second after getting his feet back under him. By the time Carson reached the bottom, John was standing on his own and Ankera had moved down the hallway a few feet to make sure the way was clear. The rest of the team quickly piled into the corridor, and they moved forward again.

Hallway after identical hallway, they moved as quickly as they could. The sounds of the guards pursuing them and of the alarms going off would get louder then softer then louder again. Sometimes, they’d run down one hallway, only to backtrack and run the other direction, just missing a patrol of guards. Ankera seemed to know where he was going, and he knew the city well.

The guards pursuing them knew the city just as well, and they seemed to have split off into teams to systematically search the area, cutting off the escape hatches that would let the humans return to the surface of the water. At the next corner, Ankera jumped back, barely out of sight of a passing patrol. They waited until the sounds of pounding steps faded in the distance.

“This isn’t working,” Ronon growled under his breath. Ankera nodded in agreement. He blinked his eyes, pressing his hands into his chest.

“We need a distraction,” John said, breathing heavily and leaning against the wall.

“A distraction?” Ankera asked. His face twitched in what John was beginning to interpret as confusion.

“Yes, a distraction. We make a big boom somewhere over there so that we can escape over here,” Rodney grouched, his tone of voice conveying exactly what he thought of their alien host and the situation they found themselves in. Ankera paused a moment, then nodded his head.

“We will have to move quickly, but I may know of a distraction that would work,” he answered.

“Maybe some of us should wait for you while you set up your distraction,” Carson spoke up, and John didn’t miss the not-so-subtle nod from the doctor in his direction. He would have argued with the Scot, but his headache wasn’t letting up. If he was honest with himself, he could use a minute to catch his breath.

The group began moving again, and Ankera explained his plan in quiet tones as they ran down another hallway, then another, then another. A few minutes later, they ducked into a small, bare room. John slid to the floor against the far wall, frustrated with how tired he felt. Carson and Teyla stood by the door, keeping guard as Rodney, Ronon, and Ankera headed out again.

John watched them from his position at the far end of the room. He could feel the last of his energy reserves quickly draining. He closed his eye against the pain in his head and rested his forehead on the palms of his hands.

* * *

Carson looked back at the man sitting against the far wall of the little room they’d taken refuge in. John Sheppard was beyond pale and an ugly, purplish bruise was beginning to spread out from under the white bandages wrapped around his head and covering his eye. He’d taken a nasty hit from one of the guards. Carson shook his head at the memory. John’s exhaustion was clearly written in every line on his face, but the fact that the man had not even made a token protest about being left back while two of his teammates performed the more dangerous task of setting off a distraction spoke volumes about his actual physical state.

Carson pushed away from the door where he and Teyla were standing watch and kneeled quietly next to the sick man. John was leaning back against the wall with his visible eye closed and his arms resting loosely on his knees. He looked even worse up close, and Carson bit his lip in frustration that he didn’t have anything from his medical bag.

“John?” He spoke quietly, not wanting to startle the man too badly and peripherally aware of the danger they were still in. John cracked his eye open, looking up at the doctor.

“How are you holding up?” Carson asked. He rested the back of his hand against John’s forehead, noting that while the skin was warm, it wasn’t feverishly hot. The left side of his face, near his eye, was painfully swollen. He grabbed his wrist and felt for the pulse while waiting for the man to answer.

“I’ve been better,” John admitted.

“We’ll get you out of here and home soon.”

“Yeah, I know.”

John closed his eye again and leaned his head back against the wall. Carson sighed, knowing there was nothing more he could do for his friend to ease his suffering. He moved back to where Teyla was. The room they were hidden in was attached to a small side hallway off of a larger corridor that Carson hoped was not used very often. Teyla had simultaneously been keeping her eye on the narrow hallway and the distant junction where it met the larger corridor and watching the interaction between John and Carson. Carson looked at her as he leaned against the door jam and saw her concern.

“How is he?” She whispered.

Carson opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment, they both heard the rhythmic tapping of footsteps coming from the larger corridor. They ducked back into the room, holding their breaths. The footsteps got louder, then abruptly stopped. Carson glanced at Teyla in alarm, but she kept a hand on his arm and signaled him to stay quiet. Carson looked over at John, but the colonel’s eye was still closed and he seemed oblivious to the situation.

They waited. They could hear the faint whispering of sound somewhere nearby, indicating the presence of the guards, but they didn’t dare look out the door and risk being caught. If the guards saw them, there was nowhere to run.

A metallic grating noise startled Carson and he jerked in surprise. The sound seemed louder than it probably was and set Carson’s heart to beating frantically. Some kind of fan or grate was opening up near the ceiling in the wall above John’s head. John had opened his eye in alarm at the noise, and was looking up at the opening above his head as well. Within a couple of seconds, the noise ceased. They held their breath, waiting for the reaction of the unseen group down the corridor. They could still hear the occasional foot steps, indicating that the group hadn’t moved far. Carson wondered fleetingly if whoever was just out of sight was some innocuous worker and not the guards hunting them down.

A distant explosion rumbled through the walls, causing their part of the city to shudder and vibrate. He looked at Teyla, and she nodded at his silent question. Their distraction. John was slowly climbing to his feet, using the wall to keep himself steady, and the footsteps in the corridor suddenly pounded away, growing louder for a second before fading away. Teyla creeped forward down the narrow hallway, her gun ready. Carson stepped out of the room, intending to watch her back and praying nothing happened to her.

His foot had barely cleared the doorframe when a door slid out of the wall and sealed the room—with John in it—shut. Carson jumped back in alarm, but as soon as the door slid shut, he rammed his shoulder into it. There was a small window allowing him to peer into the small room. John looked around in confusion until he saw Carson’s face in the window, then began moving toward the door on shaky legs.

Carson glanced at the wall that John had been sitting against. It was glistening in the pale light in a way that it hadn’t before. It took him a moment to realize water was dripping down the walls from the grates that had opened up only moments before. He heard another sound, a rumbling thrum in the walls. In the room, John looked a little disoriented as he peered around the room. He took another step toward the door then turned quickly toward the far wall.

Carson’s heart seized in his chest as a cascade of water surged through the grates and flooded the small room. The force of the water knocked John off his feet and slammed him into the wall. Carson started banging on the wall. He would have yelled too, but his voice caught in his throat. Teyla was suddenly next to him scanning the walls for some kind of control panel.

The room filled up with water faster than Carson would have thought was physically possible. The water level rose quickly passed the window, it blue murky depths lit up eerily by the ceiling lights. Carson was breathing harshly, fogging up the window as he pressed his face against it. For a brief second, he wondered if John had swam to one of the walls in search of a control panel to the door.

He banged against the door, no longer caring whether anyone heard. Staring through the window almost felt like watching a movie, like he was seeing something on a screen that wasn’t actually happening. He froze abruptly, and in the sudden silence, Teyla squeezed in next to him to look through the window. She gasped, falling backwards into Carson, who stood like a statue at the nightmare playing out before his eyes.

John floated into view, hanging suspended and completely still in the water that had filled the small room.

* * *

 **Chapter 14**

Ronon rushed forward ahead of Ankera when he recognized the hallway where they’d split off from the others. He’d hated leaving behind Beckett, Teyla, and Sheppard, but he also knew there’d been no other option. Ankera and McKay raced along behind him, trying to keep up. The distraction had been a success, but they still had to move quickly if they had any hope of escaping.

He rounded a corner, watching for guards and the small hallway that Teyla and the others had ducked into. Within seconds, he spotted it, but as he turned the corner and saw Teyla and Beckett staring into the small room they’d been hiding in, Ronon felt his heart twist in his chest. He could tell by their stance that something was wrong. Something was seriously, seriously wrong.

“What happened?” He yelled as he approached. Teyla turned toward him, shock and grief warring across her face. “Teyla?” He yelled again harshly, trying to shake her out of her fugue to figure out what had happened. Teyla stepped back and nodded toward the sealed door.

Ronon slid to a stop in front of the door, almost shoving Beckett out of the way. He pressed his face against the glass in shock at the nightmare playing out in front of his eyes. A second later, he snarled, grabbing for his gun and aiming it at the window. Beckett and Teyla jumped back as he shot at the door, but despite how close he was to his target, and the power of his weapon, his shot had no effect.

He aimed again, but before he could get off another shot, Ankera was running toward him.

“Stop, wait. What has happened? What are you doing?” The green-skinned alien cried. Ronon stepped back, allowing Ankera to look through the window. How many minutes had Sheppard been in there? How long could he survive? Ronon looked over at Beckett, who stood with McKay and Teyla in a desperate huddle.

“They are flooding out the exterior rooms,” Ankera said as he peered wide-eyed and shuddering at Sheppard’s body.

“Why?” Ronon asked, but on some detached, strategic level, he already understood the answer.

“They hope to draw us out of hiding, and leave no place for us to hide. They will work systematically through the halls, flooding the rooms until we have nowhere to run.”

“Help him!” McKay suddenly yelled, jumping forward to grab Ankera by his jacket. “Open the door.”

“Humans cannot breathe in water.” Ankera shrugged away from McKay’s grasp, his face etched in confusion. “He cannot breathe in water. What do you hope for now?”

“It takes awhile for a man to drown,” Beckett answered. “It’s only been a couple of minutes at the most.”

Ankera looked at the door for a moment, as if struggling with the decision. Ronon fought the urge to smack the alien. Or shoot him. Something. Finally, Ankera looked at the team clustered around the door.

“I will see if I can drain the water and open the door. There is the risk, though, that the guards will be monitoring. No doubt they will notice this room not holding its water, giving away our position.”

“We’ll take our chances,” Ronon growled.

Ankera flinched but began moving toward the main hallway. He paused at the threshold, looking for signs of their pursuers before disappearing around the corner.

“I’m following him,” McKay said. His eyes kept flickering toward the door that held Sheppard in death’s grip. Without another word, he spun around and marched down the hallway.

Ronon watched the scientist until the man disappeared around the corner. Part of him wanted to follow McKay, to make sure he was okay. The other half of him couldn’t leave the hallway, not with his team leader and friend minutes—maybe even seconds—away from death on the other side of the door.

He turned to face the window, resting his hands against the wall and keeping his friend’s body in sight.

* * *

Carson Beckett stared at the door, unblinking. He couldn’t bring himself to stare through the window the way Ronon was and watch his friend drown, but neither could he move far from the door. He was ready to jump through it at the first opportunity.

How long had it been? Two minutes, three, four? The longer they waited, the less chance John had of surviving. Assuming that chance hadn’t already passed. John had been in bad shape to begin with, which wouldn’t help his chances of survival.

Carson shook himself, trying in vain to rid himself of these thoughts. John was a survivor—he’d learned that for himself almost as soon as he’d met the man. If anyone could survive, it would be him.

Ronon stood up straighter, and Carson and Teyla leapt forward to see what had caused his sudden change in demeanor. The water level was dropping fast—going where, Carson couldn’t tell, but in a few seconds the room was empty. John’s body had come to rest face down in the center of the room.

The three of them took a step back as the door slid open, but then they were piling in as fast as they could possibly move. Ronon was the first to reach John, and he reached out a hand almost tentatively.

“Turn him over,” Carson choked out. Ronon and Teyla rolled John none to gently as Carson kneeled next to the colonel’s head. Now was not the time to worry about other injuries. Every second counted. If…when Carson was sure John was breathing, then he would worry about the rest.

He leaned forward, pressing his hand against the pulse point in his neck, then grabbing his wrist, then pressing his ear against John’s chest.

“He’s not breathing; I can’t find a pulse,” he said, answering the silent questions on the faces of John’s teammates. “Teyla—” he began, but she was already moving, already tilting John’s head back to open his airway. Carson positioned his hands over the colonel’s chest and began compressions, counting out loud then nodding at Teyla to breathe. He paused occasionally to check for a pulse, but John Sheppard was completely unresponsive beneath him.

McKay entered the room, followed by Ankera. Carson heard them moving behind him but he refused to take his attention away from his patient.

“How long?” Rodney asked, but his voice sounded distant. Carson continued to press. One, two, three, four, five. His arms were beginning to ache, and he cringed when they slipped a little and one of John’s ribs gave way under the pressure. Teyla continued to do mouth-to-mouth at Carson’s direction, but the tears flowed unabated down her face.

Carson stopped, shaking out his hands and pressing his ear against John’s chest. He moved up to his head, feeling for a pulse and trying not to look at John’s ashen face, the skin around his lips distinctly blue. He took a deep breath, and looked up at Sheppard’s team.

Teyla shuddered, barely stifling her sobs as she turned away. Ronon stared down at John in shock, not blinking, not quite believing what was happening before his eyes. Rodney staggered backward into the wall, his knees shaking as he shook his head. Carson watched his mouth open and close as if he was trying to say something, but no sound came out.

“I did say that humans cannot breathe underwater,” Ankera said quietly. Carson started at the words. Ankera was alien, so maybe there was some misunderstanding in the tone, but the doctor suddenly found himself shaking in anger and indignation that some stranger could be so cold about announcing the death of his friend.

“No,” Carson yelled. “It’s not over yet.” He began pressing John’s chest with renewed vigor.

“Doc?” Ronon’s voice broke through his ire, but he shook it off. He grabbed John’s head, tilting it back to breathe life into John’s lungs. He moved back to doing compressions, taking a second to find the correct position before pushing with as much force as he dared. In the back of his mind, with clinical detachment, he calculated how long John had been in the water, how long he’d been trying to resuscitate him, how long he could reasonably continue to try, what the chances were for success. He thought it, but his heart screamed louder and he fought death.

He moved forward to breathe for John again, getting in one breath before he felt arms around him pulling him away. He shoved whoever it was away—Rodney? Ronon?—and tilted John’s head back, giving him another breath. As he leaned forward to breathe again, Sheppard suddenly jerked underneath his hands.

Carson paused at the sudden movement. The hands on his arms—Ronon’s—also stopped. Time seemed to stretch out forever, but it couldn’t have been more than another second before John started gagging and choking. Carson rolled his limp body to the side as the man began expelling the water he’d inhaled. He rubbed John’s back, willing him to drag in breath after desperate breath.

Teyla was suddenly there, holding John’s hand and rubbing his face gently. The colonel’s breathing finally began to settle down, and Carson reached with shaking hands to feel for his pulse. The beat was weak, but it was there, struggling for life, and the doctor almost sagged into himself in relief. Rodney dropped down into the huddle around their team leader, spreading a blanket over John’s wet, shivering body. Carson looked up in confusion at the sudden appearance of the blanket, and Rodney nodded toward Ankera.

The alien stood away from the group, holding a second blanket—which Ronon ripped out of his hands and tucked around John—and stared at the man who had been dead only a few seconds earlier in open wonder.

“How is this possible?” He asked.

“Human life’s not so easy to quantify and categorize into your little computer files, is it?” Rodney spit out. They had wrapped John in the blankets and Teyla held him in her arms. His head rested in the crook between her neck and shoulder, and she rubbed his arms and chest as if she could soothe his ragged breathing.

Carson ignored Rodney and Ankera. He wished once again he had his medical bag, his stethoscope, anything. Instead, he shushed the others and pressed his ear against John’s chest to listen to the man’s breathing. John was alive and breathing, but he was unconscious and shocky. The bandages covering his eye were sagging and wet, but it was easier to leave them for the moment. He turned to the others.

“We need to get him back to Atlantis, now.”

* * *

 **Chapter 15**

John felt hot, almost suffocatingly hot. He rolled through the heat like he was being bounced around in a pot of boiling water. He tried to move his hand to grab at his shirt or neck or something, like he could loosen the vise grip the heat had around his body. His arm didn’t move. At least, he didn’t think it moved, but the mere attempt woke up the pain in the rest of his body.

He gasped against the onslaught. Pain radiated from his chest, head, and one of his arms, but he was a little too muddled to figure out specifically which arm. It also seemed hard to breathe, and he drew in as deep a breath as he could manage.

Which immediately caught in his lungs. He coughed weakly, grimacing at the pain that caused in his chest. He tried to move his arms again, and realized they were pinned down somehow.

“Doc?” A voice sounded above his head. He squirmed again, but wondered how much he was actually moving. He suddenly realized he was moving, or something was moving him. He cracked an eye open in a panic.

“Aye, I see him. Is he awake?” Another voice, as familiar as the first but sounding a little farther away. A brown shirt came into focus in front of him.

“Can’t tell,” the near voice responded. Ronon.

“…Rrrr’nnnn…” He tried to talk—thought he was talking—but even he could hardly understand what had come out of his mouth. His heart thudded in his chest. _What the hell had happened to him?_

“I guess that’s a yes, he is awake.” Another voice, higher pitched. McKay. The more the physicist panicked, the more John relaxed into...into what? Where was he? He still felt like he was moving. He tried to turn around but the effort was exhausting and he rested his head against the rough, brown material in front of his face.

“Peace, Sheppard.” Ronon spoke quietly and very close to his ear. John opened his eye, not realizing it had slid shut, and tried to find his friend. More movement, more brown fabric. He couldn’t seem to open one of his eyes.

It was then that he realized his tall friend had him cradled in his arms like a small child. He squirmed, moving his head. The pain in his chest spiked causing his breathing to hitch.

“Don’t move, lad. We’re almost there.”

Carson. John’s brain sluggishly assigned a name to the second voice he’d heard. Carson Beckett. He stopped moving, more from a lack of energy than anything else though. Sounds filtered in around him—the soft swishing of fabric, the harsh breathing of people around him who had obviously been moving fast, the light tapping of footsteps. He groaned at the pounding in his head and pressed his forehead into Ronon’s chest.

“Are you sure we should go this way?” Rodney’s voice floated vaguely.

“Why do you ask?” Teyla’s voice swirled around John’s senses.

John was still moving. As carefully as Ronon was holding him, he still bounced lightly in the bigger man’s arms as they rushed down the corridor. Even with his eyes closed, reality twisted around him at dizzying speeds and he felt his stomach churning.

“This is close to where we set of the distraction.”

“Those that are pursuing us are hemming us in. This was the only direction left to us.” That voice was alien. The image of a tall green alien with black veins and bizarre, trembling hair flitted through his mind. Ankera. That sounded right. John shivered, surprised that the oppressive heat he’d been feeling only a moment earlier had been replaced with chills.

“Where will this take us?” Teyla.

“There is a large hangar up ahead that opens up into the lake.”

“Hangar? As in, ship? Boat? Vehicle? Escape?” Rodney.

John panted against the nausea twisting in his guts. Again, he tried to move his arms, but they were tangled in some kind of blanket. His left wrist was throbbing, and the pain of it grew louder than all of his other aches and pains as he tried to untangle himself. He grit his teeth but couldn’t help the whimper that escaped his lips.

“Hold on, Sheppard.” Ronon.

“In here, quickly.”

The sound around John changed and he was dimly aware that their group had moved from the confines of the corridor into a larger space. Their steps echoed as they walked. John moaned, wishing the movement would just stop.

“Up here.”

The sensation of movement changed, and John cracked his eye open to see what was happening. The pain in his chest and head increased as Ronon tightened his grip. John caught a glimpse of a large hangar bay, and thin metal railing. He realized they were climbing some kind of stairway on the edge of the hangar. His vision blurred a second later as he bounced against Ronon’s chest.

“Set him down over there.” Carson’s voice sounded nearby, and the sensation of movement changed again. John was back to feeling stiflingly hot. He groaned as he was set down on a hard surface.

“John? Are you with me, lad?”

John blinked, looking up into the relieved face of the doctor. The blankets wrapped around him had been loosened a little, and he tried to push them off of him.

“Hot…” he panted.

“I know, son. We’re going to get you out of here soon, but I need you to answer a few questions for me. Can you do that?”

John nodded and felt Carson’s hands on his neck, chest, head, and arms. He tried to turn away, whimpering slightly at the throbbing pain in his body.

“Where does it hurt?”

John took a deep breath, then stopped when pain lanced through his chest. He’d managed to free his right arm, which he now flopped over his body. “Chest,” he rasped out.

“Aye, sorry about that, lad.” John felt Carson’s hand resting lightly on his chest, and he wondered why the doctor was apologizing. “Anywhere else?”

“Head and…um…wrist.”

“Left wrist?”

“Yeah.”

“I noticed it looked a little swollen. I don’t think it’s broken—just sprained—but we’ll check it out back in Atlantis.” Carson’s hands moved through John’s hair around the bandages, feeling for bumbs as he spoke.

“…’kay,” John answered. He turned his head to the side, looking past Carson. They were on some kind of metal catwalk. Ronon stood near the railing, vigilantly watching the bay beneath them. Teyla and Rodney stood at one end of the metal walkway, looking over Ankera’s shoulder to a bank of monitors and computer consoles. Memories of the underwater city, the chip in his eye, the arrest, escape, and the subsequent race through the corridors to evade their pursuers raced through his mind. He vaguely remembered being locked in a room, but how he got out of that room was a blank.

“Help me…sit,” he asked, looking back up at Carson. The doctor frowned, but when John moved to sit up on his own, Carson leaned forward, grabbing him under the armpits and gently lifting him until he was resting against the wall.

“Try not to move around too much. You’ve got at least one cracked rib.”

“Not going anywhere,” John whispered, panting through the pain caused by the act of sitting up.

Carson sighed, squeezing John’s arm before standing up and moving toward Teyla, Rodney, and Ankera. John watched them stare at whatever information Ankera was gathering from the screens. They looked tense, coiled up and ready to snap at a moment’s notice. A little farther away from them, Ronon was leaning over the edge of the railing, his attention rapt on the hangar bay below them. Besides the soft whisperings of his friends, the place was quiet.

John shifted, his position against the wall growing increasingly uncomfortable. Everything was throbbing, and all he wanted to do was lay down, but his team and Carson were in danger. No matter how much pain he was in, finding a way to help them escape was still his responsibility.

He closed his right eye in frustration, and reached up to touch the bandage covering his left eye. He’d been incapacitated for over two months—two months!—because of Ankera’s little science project. He felt a surge of anger at being used, anger he’d been too tired to deal with before. It gave him the energy to sit up straighter, and he braced himself against the wall and used his good, non-painfully-throbbing arm to push himself into a standing position.

He closed his eye against the dizziness and swallowed the bile that threatened to overwhelm him. His stomach twisted in knots as he leaned against the wall and tried to ground himself. When he opened his eye, Ronon was staring at him with open concern. John nodded, trying to exude a sense of confidence and an “I’m fine” attitude. Ronon, not fooled but also more perceptive than most, nodded back, and let his team leader stand on his own two feet.

John stared over at the others, Ankera in the middle. He felt another surge of hatred toward the alien, but as he watched the alien’s jerky movements, his flinches and frantic punching of the console in front of him, John’s anger slowly drained away. Beneath the trembling and the fear, he thought he could sense a sadness in the alien. Maybe it was just his imagination—he was an alien after all—but Ankera’s life had been decided the minute he’d invited the humans down to the city. Ankera was smart, too, and John realized that the alien had understood the consequences of his actions long before he’d appeared on the beach in front of them so many hours earlier.

John sighed. He wanted to be angry at him, to hold onto to the legitimate outrage at being used, but the longer he stared at Ankera, the harder it became for him to stay mad at him. Ankera had risked everything—his work, his safety, his way of living, even his life itself—to help John and correct the mistake he had made. He was a scientist and he’d used John, but he hadn’t been without a conscience. And he’d sacrificed his life to return John his health and, with it, normalcy—a return to his life.

Normalcy. Life. Not being stuck in a bed sick and sore and scared. He felt a renewed surge of anger at what Ankera had done, at what he had put John through. At the assumption the alien had made that he could simply step into other people’s lives. He flashed briefly to the man that had watched his village destroyed by the wraith before being killed himself, and he wondered what emotions the alien had felt. Had he stood by, watching dispassionately on the screen what had happened to his “explorer”? Why had Ankera risked everything to help John but stood idly by and watched the others die?

Ronon stiffened next to him and leaned farther over the railing. He was obviously looking at something in the hangar bay below. John was about to ask him about it, when a slight movement caught his eye. He turned around, looking at the wall he’d been leaning on. A rectangular area along the wall transformed from opaque to clear, and John realized it was a window.

Four aliens stood on the other side of the window, watching the group without expression. John happened to be standing directly in front of one of the aliens. They were all tall, like Ankera, with the same green skin, black veins, and thin tendrils of hair. They wore all-black fitted uniforms—very different from the loose flowing browns and beiges Ankera wore. It wasn’t just their clothing, though; there was something else different about them. There was an air of harshness about them, of authority and judgment, and no mercy.

John reached up, touching the glass with his fingertips and remembering his dreams from so long ago of the gray corridor and the blue window, of his hand passing through the window to be surrounded by the blue. He pressed his fingers against the glass-like material. The window was solid this time. John stared at the aliens, unable to tear his eye away from their unforgiving faces.

* * *

 **Chapter 16**

“Bloody hell!”

Ronon spun around at Carson’s cry, and heard the others gasp at the sight of the four aliens staring through the window that had suddenly appeared in the previously solid wall. Ronon lunged forward, banging against the window, but the aliens didn’t even flinch.

He stepped back, watching Sheppard stare through the window, mesmerized. The sick man brought his hands up to the glass as if he was trying to reach out to the four beings on the other side. Ronon looked over at Ankera and saw the alien cowering in fear at the far end of the scaffolding area they were standing on. He hated what Ankera had done to Sheppard, but the aliens in front of him were different. Where Ankera's actions could be blamed on curiosity and taking a science experiment too far, here was something sinister in the blank stares of the four aliens on the other side of the glass.

He looked back over the railing, remembering he had seen some movement down there a few seconds earlier. He hadn’t noticed it right away—the initial change had been so subtle—but it was obvious now. His throat tightened on him.

“Water,” he said, looking over at McKay and Teyla. They joined him by the railing and glanced down into the hangar bay. Beckett had moved to John’s side and was pulling the man away from the window and the gaze of the four aliens. He helped John sit on the scaffolding stairs they’d climbed earlier then joined the others at the railing.

“The bay is filling with water,” McKay announced. He spun around to yell at the aliens staring through the window, but his voice trailed off in view of their callous expressions. Ronon ignored them, unable to tear his gaze from the blue lake that was filling the hangar bay beneath them with alarming speed. It was like the room Sheppard had been locked in. It was a much larger space, but it was the same thing. He finally looked at the four aliens.

“That’s their plan,” he growled.

“What?” Carson asked.

“They wanted us dead. They’ve cornered us into the hangar, locked us in, and now they’re filling it with water. Ankera said it himself—humans don’t breathe under water.”

“Do something!” McKay yelled at Ankera. The alien had backed into a corner and ducked his head behind his hands. Even from twenty feet away, Ronon could see the alien shaking in fear. He would no longer be any help to them, he realized. Ankera had done all he could.

The water level continued to rise. It was just a few feet below the small landing halfway down the staircase. Ronon glared at the four aliens, wondering if they would dispassionately watch all of them drown. _If they were smart, they’d watch,_ Ronon thought darkly, _and not assume like Ankera had that humans die quickly in water._ He would fight to find a way out of here until his last breath.

He looked over at Sheppard. The man was deathly pale and sat on the edge of the top stair. He held his head in his hands, his fingers covering his ears. The white bandage wrapped around his head was dirty and sagging, and spots of red had bled through. Ronon could tell he was staring down at the water intently, and he did not fail to notice the small tremors running through the man’s body. The prospect of drowning, again, must have been terrifying, but true to form, Sheppard did not overtly show it. Ronon felt a surge of pride and admiration.

McKay was yelling again, and Teyla was trying to coax Ankera from the corner and back to the computer console. Beckett stood in the middle, undecided as to what he could do to help. Ronon fingered his blaster, staring at the window. The gun had had no effect on the door of Sheppard’s small room, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.

He fired five or six shots at the glass, aiming directly at one of the aliens’ heads. His lips curled back in a feral grin when one of them jerked badly in reaction to the first couple of shots. Finally, he’d managed to elicit some kind of reaction from their executioners. The blast from the gun had no visible effect on the glass, however. A second later, the window went opaque and the aliens disappeared from sight.

The blast shots and the darkening of the window seemed to spur everyone around him into action. Ronon was so caught up in the frenzy surrounding the computer console, that he barely heard Sheppard’s choked cry. He spun around just in time to see the colonel stumbling down the stairs. The water had reached the landing, and it splashed as Sheppard’s boots stomped across the metal landing.

“Sheppard!” Ronon yelled.

Sheppard ignored him. He staggered toward the edge of the landing, one hand held up to his left ear. Ronon ran toward the stairs, taking them three at a time, but even in the almost split second it took him to reach the landing, he saw Sheppard continue down the stairwell into the water.

At the third step, Sheppard tripped and fell head first into the water. Ronon didn’t pause in his run, hitting the landing that was now covered in at least two inches of water at breakneck speed. He could hear the others running along the scaffolding above him. In another second, he was diving into the water, noting that Sheppard had not resurfaced at all.

 _Not again,_ he thought. _Please, not again._ He opened his eyes the second he hit the water, but all he could make out were the myriads of bubbles floating up around him. He pushed through the water, kicking his feet. The bay below him was dark, but a second later, a small light below him caught his eye.

He turned toward it, and Sheppard’s dark hair appeared in front of him. Ronon snagged his friend by the collar and looked up, kicking his feet as hard as he could toward the surface. It only took another second, but it felt like hours had passed.

“Ronon? Sheppard?” Beckett’s voice rang out across the water. Ronon adjusted his grip on Sheppard, making sure his friend’s head was above the water. Sheppard struggled against him to no effect, his arms flailing feebly as he tried to swim in the opposite direction.

Ronon pulled him easily toward the staircase. The landing was now covered in at least a foot of water. Beckett and Teyla were waiting for them, their hands outstretched. As soon as Ronon and Sheppard were within reach, they grabbed the colonel’s arms and lifted him as gently as possible out of the water.

“How is he? Is he okay?” McKay was leaning over the railing near the computer console, his face etched with fear.

“What the hell were you thinking, lad?”

Sheppard was leaning back against the stairs, with Beckett leaning over him and tapping his cheek. Ronon bent over, his hands on his knees. Water dripped from his hair in streams. The colonel squinted up at Beckett, his face breaking into a lopsided grin.

“We’re saved,” he said, and promptly passed out.

* * *

 **Chapter 17**

“John? Wake up, John.” Carson tapped the side of the unconscious man’s face. They had set him on the stairs just above the water line and leaned him back. John groaned, his eye fluttering in response. Carson rubbed his knuckles against his chest. “John, look at me.”

John finally opened his eye and looked up at the doctor, and Carson breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hey, doc,” John mumbled.

“Lad, you’re not helping my stress levels. You know that, don’t you?” He grabbed John’s right wrist, noting that the colonel was starting to shiver.

“Saw a jj-jumperrr,” John slurred.

“What?” Ronon asked. Teyla stood next to him, her face creased in concern.

“Jumper…r-r-rescue…” John’s entire body was shaking, making it difficult for him to form words.

“What’s going on?” McKay yelled. He still stood near the computer console. He was half-turned toward the group on the stairs while his hands flew over the keyboard in front of him in an attempt to find an escape from the hangar bay.

Before anyone else could respond, Ronon dived off the landing and into the water. Teyla and Carson spun around at the splashing sound as he hit the water.

“Ronon!” Teyla stepped forward and stared into the water.

“You’re all bloody mad!”

Next to him, John was struggling to sit up. He had barely made it upright before he slumped over to the side. Carson lunged, catching John before he fell over completely. “Easy, lad.”

“…resss…cu’d…” John mumbled.

“What?”

“Lorne…c-c-coming…”

“Lorne?” Carson asked. A splashing sound, and Teyla’s cry of surprise had Carson spinning around. He kept one arm around John, but fear thudded in his heart. The water lapped against John’s legs.

“Ronon? Major Lorne?” Teyla asked, surprise and relief flooding from her voice.

Carson looked up in shock at the sight of Ronon and Lorne climbing onto the landing. The water hit both of their knees.

“How’d you know?” Carson asked, squatting down on the stair next John to bring his face level with his friend’s. John was pale, almost gray, and his shivering had, if anything, increased.

John reached up under the bandages wrapped around his head to his left ear. He pulled out a small ear piece and handed it to Carson.

“One of our radio receivers!” Carson exclaimed.

“Yeah…didn’t know it…w-was there…then all of…s-s-s-sudden…hear Lorne t-talking…bay door…open…f-f-flying…j-jumper in…close to t-t-trans…transponder signals,” John ground out through chattering teeth. He looked up in confusion at the doctor. “How did..g-guards miss the…r-r-radio?”

“They didn’t,” Carson answered, looking slightly abashed. “They took your radio while you were unconscious, but then I slipped mine under your bandages when the guards weren’t looking. With everything that happened after that, I completely forgot about it.” He shook his head, his face turning a deep shade of pink. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I guess I’m not really fieldwork material.”

“Nah…you did g-good,” John rasped. He rubbed a hand over his chest.

“Well, I don’t know about good, but it looks like we’re getting out of here, son,” Carson smiled, clasping the pale, shaking man on the shoulder. Ronon, Teyla, and Major Lorne stepped up behind him. The doctor looked up at the sound of footsteps above him, and saw Rodney and Ankera looking down at them.

“I assume your presence in the hangar bay means a timely, last minute rescue for the rest of us,” McKay snapped, although the relief in his face took the edge off the words.

“Ready when you are,” answered Lorne. “Although may I suggest sooner rather than later.”

John chuckled, then coughed, then choked. Carson held him upright, rubbing his back until the cough seizing his lungs quieted.

“I don’t like the sound of that cough, lad. We need to get you home.”

John moaned in response.

“Did I miss a conversation somewhere? How the hell did you get here, Lorne?” Rodney griped as he stepped carefully down the stairs. “Not that I’m not grateful or anything,” he added.

“The guards at the gate heard your first encounter with…Ankera?” Lorne looked up at the tall green alien standing behind Rodney. At Ankera’s nod of affirmation, Lorne continued. “Someone must have keyed their mike on the beach.” He looked pointedly down at Sheppard. “They dialed home to inform us of the situation. We returned with a jumper, but it took us a little while to track you. We finally picked up your transponder signals and had been trying to figure out a way to get into the city undetected when the bay door opened.”

“The bay door is open?” Carson asked as he hefted John up to a standing position. John swayed slightly, gripping the doctor. Teyla stepped up next to John and grabbed a hold of his arm.

“Yeah, it is, but there’s some kind of weird force field over it.”

“Weird?” Rodney asked.

“It is designed to keep water out, but allow our submersibles to pass through unhindered. It can be adjusted to allow water to flow in at varying rates,” Ankera spoke up. He waved his arm at the rapidly rising water in the hangar bay.

Lorne stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and wariness, not quite sure how to take the alien’s presence. “Right. We were able to get into the hangar and set down on the floor of the bay. We adjusted the jumper’s shield to keep the water out. We could see you were in the hangar bay directly above us, but when you failed to respond to our radio calls, I decided to take a little swim.”

“I hhhhearrr..ddd…” John slurred, his legs buckling. Carson grabbed him around the waist and hefted him back up.

“Maybe we should continue this conversation later, as in ‘safe and sound in Atlantis’ later,” Carson suggested. He moved carefully down the stairs onto the landing, noting that the water was at his waist. The others nodded and moved toward the edge of the landing.

“It’s not far,” Lorne said. “Just swim straight down.”

“What about Ankera?” Teyla asked.

“C-c-comes with…ussss…”

The others stared at John for a moment, but then nodded. After everything the alien had done for them—despite the problems he had caused at the same time—John was not prepared to leave him behind and consign him to certain death.

“Um, guys,” Rodney spoke up, his voice a little strained. “How far down is the jumper, exactly? I’m…uh…I’m not exactly a strong swimmer.”

“I will assist you Doctor McKay,” Ankera answered. Rodney stared at the alien with trepidation, but relaxed a little when Ronon moved closer to him.

“Doc, you going to need help with Colonel Sheppard?” Lorne asked.

“Nah. I was on the swim team at university,” Carson answered, grinning. “It’s been a few years, but water is second nature to me. Teyla, love, will you be alright?”

“I, too, can swim. I will stay close to you and John in case you need help.”

“Alright, then. Let’s go. Follow me.”

Lorne dove into the water. Teyla, Carson, and John stepped carefully off the landing.

“John, look at me,” Carson commanded. He turned John’s head until he was sure the sick man was focused on him. “You need to take as deep a breath as you can manage, and then we’re going to swim down to the jumper. Do you understand?”

At John’s nod, all three of them dove down into the water. Carson kept a strong grip around John’s waist and noticed that Teyla was swimming close on the other side. John tried to kick his feet to help propel themselves down, but his movements were weak and uncoordinated. It took a few seconds, but then Carson spotted the jumper below them. Lorne, who had been heading head first toward it, suddenly brought his feet up in front of him as he hit the jumper’s shield.

Obviously, someone had been working on the shield technology. Through the water, Carson watched Lorne pass through the shield and drop to the dry ground, landing gracefully on his feet.

John bucked slightly in Carson’s grasp, and the doctor looked over to see a stream of air bubbles escape the colonel’s lips. Teyla moved in right away, grabbing John by the arm and helping him swim down. Carson wasn’t exactly sure where the edge of the jumper’s shield was, but when he was close, he thrust his legs out in front of him the way Lorne had.

The three of them hit the shield, and their momentum carried them through it and into the small bubble of air around the ship. Their landing was a little less graceful, but Lorne was there, along with another Marine, to catch them.

John’s legs buckled immediately, and he began coughing uncontrollably as he tried to draw in oxygen. Carson and Teyla kept their arms around him and moved him into the jumper as soon as they got their feet under them.

“Easy, lad, easy. You’re alright. Keep breathing,” Carson mumbled quietly. He was almost giddy with relief at the sight of a medical kit on one of the jumper’s benches. “Set him down over here,” he directed.

They laid John out on the floor and Carson grabbed the medical bag. He rummaged through it, grabbing the equipment he needed, including an oxygen mask. John finally stopped hacking, but he was wheezing. His eye fluttered open and closed. Besides them, Teyla moved around, grabbing emergency blankets and spreading them over John’s shivering, shuddering body.

Rodney, Ronon, Ankera, Lorne, and the other Marine piled into the back of the jumper, and Lorne closed the back hatch and moved forward to the pilot’s seat. People moved around them, loud and wet and sinking into the benches in relief. Carson kept his focus on John, grateful for Teyla’s help as she kneeled down next to him.

“Grab some of those bandages, would you? These ones are a sodding mess.” He carefully unwrapped the wet, messy bandages hanging from John’s head and replaced them with crisp white ones. He was relieved to see there was no bleeding, and the swelling where John had been hit hours earlier seemed to have gone down. One less thing to worry about, he hoped.

“Radek? I should have known you were in here messing around with the jumper’s shields,” Rodney exclaimed. Carson glanced up to see the Czech glancing into the back of the jumper with a tight, worried nod.

“Let me see what you did…” Rodney’s voice trailed off as he moved to the front of the jumper.

They were moving now, out of the city and through the water. Carson looked up, startled, the second the jumper broke the surface of the water. Warm sunlight poured through the windows.

“Wow,” Rodney breathed out. The others moved forward to peer out the window and the view from above of the lake and the surrounding countryside. Forested hills surrounded most of the lake, leading to snow capped mountains off in the distance. They could see the stargate and the field where Rodney had first detected the energy readings on this planet. A few hundred yards away was the little isolated beach along the edge of the lake, one of many that surrounded the huge expanse of water.

The lake itself was even more startling from above. It was a rich deep blue—the center and deepest point was dark, royal blue, growing lighter to an almost teal color near the shallower parts and around the edges.

“You’re world is beautiful, Ankera,” Teyla said, breaking the silence. Carson peered through the window, keeping his hand on John’s chest and monitoring his vitals. From his angle, he couldn’t see as much as the others, but he had to agree with Teyla. Ankera’s world was beautiful.

“Yes, it is,” the alien answered, his voice slightly subdued as he gazed in wonder out of the puddle jumper’s window. “Few if any of my people will ever see our world like this, however, with its beauty laid before our eyes like artwork.”

“Dialing the gate now. Is…uh…Ankera coming back with us to…?”

“Yes, yes, Lorne. That’s what Sheppard said. Plus, he saved Sheppard’s life and if he stays here he’ll be killed. And, he already knows all about Atlantis,” Rodney yammered away. “He’s got some pretty interesting ideas, actually. Ankera, after we return home and get checked out and no one’s on the verge of death, yadda yadda yadda, I’d like to talk to you a little more about some of the stuff you’ve been working on. That hangar bay shield, for example…”

The others groaned, but Carson shook his head, smiling as Rodney launched into a scientific discussion that only he, Radek, and Ankera seemed to follow. To Carson, it sounded normal. And healthy, he added silently to himself. He glanced down at John, who had passed out not long after laying down, relieved that they would all soon be in the ‘normal and healthy’ category.

* * *

 **Chapter 18—Epilogue**

John was sick—again—and he hated being sick. He reached for the ever-present glass of water near his bedside table, his hand shaking slightly as his chest convulsed in coughs. Whatever microbe was in Ankera’s lake did not like his lungs. Within a day of returning back to Atlantis, his fever had shot up and his breathing had gone downhill.

He sipped at the glass, sighing as the cool water ran down his burning throat. He set the glass back down on the table and leaned his head against his pillows. He was propped up in a bed at the far end of the infirmary. The nurses—at his request—had opened the Ancient’s version of blinds, allowing him an unimpeded view of the calm ocean surrounding the city.

He coughed again into his fist, then took as deep a breath as he dared. He dropped his hand to his chest and tried to rub away the lingering achiness. Two days had passed in a feverish haze, but according to the good doctor, he was finally on the mend despite the fact that he still felt like he’d been run over by a truck. His ribs—luckily just one cracked and none broken from Beckett’s CPR—were not happy with all the coughing he was doing.

“Good afternoon, lad,” Carson said as he breezed into the room. John blinked, turning his gaze away from the ocean to look at the doctor. “How are you feeling?”

John waved his hand— _so-so._ His chest and head ached, his muscles were sore from all the coughing, and his throat was raw. He still had a bit of a fever as well that had left him weak and constantly tired.

Carson leaned over him, listening to his heart and lungs. After a few minutes, he pulled out his pen light and flashed it in John’s eyes. For once, John didn’t complain—in part because he was tired and felt like crap. Overriding how badly he felt, however, was an overwhelming sense of relief.

“Your eye looks good, John,” Carson reported. “There’s still a bit of bruising on your face and the side of your head, but I believe it’s reached the colorful stage where it looks worse than it actually is.”

“That’s good. About the eye, I mean.”

“Aye, it is. Ankera knew what he was doing when he removed that chip out from behind your ocular nerve. I couldn’t have done it without doing permanent damage.”

John nodded. He coughed again, deep in his chest, and grimaced at the burning sensation in his lungs. Carson held out the glass of water for him. He sipped at the water between coughs until his lungs finally calmed down.

“How is Ankera?” He rasped. The alien had attempted to visit him earlier that day, but John had refused. The intense, fluctuating anger he'd felt toward the being when they were stuck in his city was gone. In its wake was confusion. John wasn't sure how to feel toward the alien, so he had opted on not acknowledging him now that he was home and safe. A small part of him chided himself for acting juvenile and resorting to the silent treatment, but all John wanted now was to move on with his life and forget the last couple of months.

“Good. Very good, as long as he stays out of Ronon's way." Carson remarked. Ronon had been very clear on his feelings, almost choking the life out of the alien shortly after returning to Atlantis. It had taken McKay, Teyla, and Elizabeth to talk him down. Carson had explained everything that had happened that morning to John, when he'd come with Ankera's request to visit. John couldn't help but notice that the doctor seemed almost a little disappointed that Ronon hadn't been allowed to intimidate the alien a little longer. His almost afterthought mention that even cool, calm, and collected Teyla seemed to bristle around him told John more about his friends' feelings on the events of the last couple of months than anything.

"He’s quite taken with Atlantis," Carson continued. "He’s been very forthcoming about his own city and the life he lived there.” Carson shook his head, pulling up a stool to sit on. “Sad, really. They’re quite overcome with fear, and the city government rules the place like a police state. Ankera had managed to stay out of their way, but his research was garnering more and more unwanted attention. It was just a matter of time before they put a stop to it—or to him. You almost feel bad for him.”

 _Almost._

Maybe one day the memory of what had happened to him wouldn't be so sharp, and John would be willing to interact with Ankera and deal with him civilly, even cordially. _Maybe._

“What are his plans?”

“I believe he’s asked Elizabeth if he can resettle on one of his previous explorers’ planets. An agrarian world, completely landlocked. It was attacked recently by the Wraith, and he wants to help them rebuild, if they’ll let him. He said he’s tired of water, and I can’t blame him for that.” Carson stared out the window a moment, his gaze on the ocean but his mind focused on his own thoughts. “If it was up to Rodney, however, he’d be staying here as a lab assistant to the physics department,” he said a minute or two later, grinning. “The man is quite taken with Ankera, despite his almost continual beratement of Ankera's lack of 'ethical standards in the practice of science.' Rodney even went so far as commenting on the man’s…or I guess the alien’s…high intelligence level.”

“Rodney did that?”

“Aye, he did. Almost dragged him down here myself for a physical when I heard that, just to double check he hadn’t swallowed some of your blue water.”

“Funny,” John snapped, which incited another coughing fit. He wrapped his arms around his chest in a desperate attempt to prop up the tender muscles around his rib cage. Carson moved around next to him, one hand on his shoulder helping him sit up a bit more.

“How come no one else got sick? You were all in the water with me,” John groused.

“You’re the only one that tried to breathe it in. Also, you’re immune system was weak and susceptible to the persistent little buggers that seem to live in abundance in that lake,” Carson answered. “Although, if it makes you feel better, Rodney was quite convinced he was coming down with pneumonia when we first returned.”

“But he didn’t get pneumonia.”

“Ha, no. That hypochondriac didn’t even get a cold. His body’s a lot stronger than he gives it credit.”

“And I’m weak,” John said, his voice flat. He frowned and turned toward the ocean. There was a darkness just on the edge of awareness, threatening after so many injuries and months of sickness to move in. John swallowed, trying not to think of how far he still had to go before things really were “normal.”

“You’re tired, and you need rest,” Carson said forcefully. He laid a hand on John’s arm to get the man’s attention. “Sleep now, and I’ll be back in a few hours with some dinner for you.” He moved toward the privacy curtain, but stopped as John called out to him.

“Wait.”

“Oh, sorry, lad. Should have checked with you. Did you need anything else before I go?”

John shook his head, but he reached out to grab Carson’s sleeve. His heart stuttered a little in trepidation about what he wanted to say, and he grimaced when the heart monitor revealed his unease.

“What’s wrong, John? Are you feeling alright?” Carson glanced up in concern at the monitors for a moment.

“I’m fine. It’s just that…I talked to the others about what happened in the city—the parts that are a little fuzzy for me.” John paused, watching Carson’s expression and hoping the doctor understood what parts he was referring to. “Thanks for not giving up on me.”

Carson stared at him, and John could almost see the memory of his frantic resuscitation efforts in the little storage room flit across the Scotsman’s face. That memory would haunt them all for awhile. A second later, he shook his head and patted John’s shoulder. “Just doing my job.”

“But if you had stopped—” John started to say, then shook his head. “Just, thanks for doing your job so well. And not just in Ankera’s city. I mean for all of this,” he said waving his arm to indicate the general vicinity of the infirmary.

Carson blushed slightly, and John squirmed a little in the bed, feeling uncomfortable with the personal nature the conversation had taken and resisting the urge to groan and pull the covers up over his head. He wondered what Carson would say next, and part of him wished he’d just kept his mouth shut. He shook his head at the thought almost as soon as it crossed his mind. Maybe it was just the lingering effects of the fever, but he needed to say things out loud right now.

The perceptive doctor smiled graciously at the unexpected praise, however, aware of John’s discomfiture. “You’ve had a rough couple of months, and a very rough week,” he said, “but you’re going to be just fine.”

“Yeah, I am,” John smiled slightly and relaxed into the bed. His chest convulsed again from another cough, but it came and went quickly. “You really did do good out there, doc.”

“Good? I don’t know about that. I can’t believe I forgot about that radio I swiped.” Carson shook his head. “And to think I was so proud of myself at the time.”

John sniggered, but his laugh quickly turned into a hack. Carson helped him sit up for a moment as John worked through his five-hundredth coughing fit of the day. When he leaned back, the doctor was already holding the glass of water out to him.

“Feel better?” Carson asked after John had sipped down half the glass.

John nodded. “This sucks,” he whispered. He handed the glass back. “Carson.” He said the doctor’s name, getting his full attention. “I meant what I said, about you doing good out there.”

Carson rubbed his hand across his forehead, pressing his fingers into his eyes for a moment before looking back down at John. “I appreciate that, lad, I really do. I hope this isn’t some roundabout way of you trying to get me on an offworld team. You know how much I hate going through that stargate.”

John started laughing again, and again, the laughs immediately turned to coughing. They were deep and wet and bone-rattling, and caused lances of pain to shoot across his ribcage. He fuzzed out for a moment as he tried to breathe. A few minutes later, he realized Carson had him sitting up completely, an oxygen mask covering his face. The doctor held him steady and rubbed his back until John’s lungs once again settled down into an uneasy breathing pattern.

“Don’t make me laugh,” John groaned through the mask.

“Sorry, lad. Maybe you should stop trying to talk,” the doctor smiled.

“I was just trying to say that I _do_ know how much you hate going through the gate. But you go anyway and you do your job, and you do it well. Ankera’s people live in so much fear, they hardly step out their front doors.”

John coughed again, once and lightly. Carson finally let him lean back, adjusting the mask. He gripped John’s wrist, feeling for the pulse, then laid the back of his hand against the sick man’s forehead.

“It does make you think, doesn’t it? I hope we never get to that point,” Carson muttered, grimacing. John wasn’t sure if the grimace was directed at his vital signs or the dark turn the conversation had suddenly taken.

“It won’t,” John rasped. His voice was weak and hoarse, but there was a glint of strength and determination behind the words. He could feel it in his bones. “Not if we keep going through the stargate and facing our fears and our responsibilities.”

Carson nodded, grinning. “I’d have to agree with you there. And, I believe that’s two compliments you’ve paid me, which means you’re much sicker than I previously believed.”

John smirked back, but he could feel another cough building in his chest and he didn’t dare respond. He reached for the almost empty glass of water on the table, grateful when Carson brought it to him and held it steady. He moved the oxygen mask to the side and finished off the glass. He swallowed then breathed as deep as he dared, testing his lungs. For once, they stayed quiet.

“Now, unless there’s anything else I can do for you, do me a favor and get some sleep so I can kick your healthy arse out of my infirmary in a few days,” Carson said. He fussed for a moment, removing the mask and double checking the monitors around the bed.

“You got it, doc.” John smiled, relieved but satisfied with what he—in his own clumsy way—had managed to say. It had been a rough couple of months for all of them, but a return to health and the normal routine of life in the Pegasus galaxy was looking promising. John felt the darkness hanging over him retreat a little more as he settled back into the pillows, his face warmed by the sun pouring through the window. He felt the doctor pull the blanket up and tuck it in more tightly around his shoulders, and then he was alone. He coughed slightly but his eyes were growing heavy, and he felt himself drifting closer to sleep. In a few hours, his team would show up with their dinner trays and stories about whatever odd, exciting, or—in Rodney’s case—irritating events had occurred that day. John blinked, staring out across the ocean and the bright afternoon. The sunlight glinted off the water, throwing gold specks across the great expanse of deep blue that surrounded his city. A moment later, he slipped quietly into his own dreams.

END


End file.
